China and the United States reached an agreement that would help fend off talk of a decoupling between the world's two largest economies, a top Chinese official said.
The countries signed an initial trade deal on Wednesday to put the brakes on their 18-month war of tariffs that roiled global markets and shook up supply chains.
Chinese Vice-President Liu He, speaking to reporters after a signing ceremony with US President Donald Trump, said the deal indicated that two economies are deeply interconnected.
"I think it is very unrealistic. A few people without economic backgrounds are talking about decoupling between China and the US, but in reality it is impossible," Liu was quoted as saying by the Chinese business news outlet Caixin.
Some members of the Trump administration, and American analysts, have called on US companies to reduce their reliance on Chinese goods and services, citing what they say are Beijing's unfair trade practices.
On the flip side, Beijing has taken steps to wean itself off foreign technologies as the US has moved to limit Chinese access to certain American components. A former Chinese technology minister recently said China is aiming to more than double the use of domestic components in key industries by 2025.
Calling it "win-win," Liu's remarks echo the Chinese state-run media's mostly upbeat depiction of the trade agreement.
The official Xinhua News Agency published an editorial on Thursday morning saying that the phase one deal showed China and the US are looking for "a more reasonable approach" to managing their differences.
But it warned that the deal should only be considered "a good start" to address a dispute that is "long-term, complicated and arduous."
Many analysts agree with this sentiment, especially since, on the same day Liu and Trump signed the deal, the US was preparing to unleash new restrictions on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei's access to US technology.
People's Daily " the official newspaper of China's Communist Party " struck a hopeful note, declaring that the bilateral trade relationship "is now standing at a new starting point."
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