Photo: VCG

Top Chinese trade officials on Wednesday called for a better response to economic and trade tensions with the US in the coming year, even after the world's two biggest economic powers agreed on the text of a phase one deal, underscoring Beijing's growing weariness of an increasingly hostile approach from Washington.

A recent meeting of the Ministry of Commerce has set "better responding to China-US economic and trade friction" as one of the top priorities for the ministry in 2020, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

The meeting, which was held in Beijing from Monday to Tuesday, came after Chinese and US officials announced on Friday that they had agreed on the text of a widely anticipated phase one agreement, which has been cited as a sign of thawing relations after a trade war that has lasted for about 19 months.

The call for a better response to trade friction with the US next year reflected Chinese officials' understanding that even after the phase one deal, tensions will likely persist because of the broad hostile approach US officials have apparently adopted, experts noted. 

"There will be a war of words in many areas, although further escalation of tension is not very likely," said Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, who advises the Chinese government on trade issues.

Gao noted that radical anti-China forces in the US are continuing to disrupt normal bilateral relations. 

"At the moment, anti-China elements are running around on sinister errands," Gao told the Global Times on Wednesday.

In the latest sign of potential friction, Reuters reported on Wednesday that the US was finalizing a set of rules to limit exports of core technologies to "adversaries like China." Though the rules are tailored to specific areas, reflecting concern among US exporters, the US could issue more rules in the future to crack down on the sales of cutting-edge items, the report said.

China on Wednesday blasted the reported US move as an abuse of national security rules and export control measures, saying that such an attempt to contain China's technological rise will not prevail.

"The US should not think that limiting exports of cutting-edge technology to China will be able to stop China's technological innovation and delay China's development path," Geng Shuang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry told a briefing in Beijing, referring to the reported move. "[The US] is bit overconfident."

Also, on Monday, the US House of Representatives passed legislation that was apparently aimed at barring the US government from purchasing telecom network equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and setting up a $1 billion fund to replace existing equipment in small and rural areas of the US.

However, Gao said that given the urgency on both sides to de-escalate the trade war, the phase one deal is unlikely to be affected by the exchange of barbs. "We have done what we can and the US is also unlikely to change," he said.

Chinese and US officials are finalizing the phase one deal, including legal and translation reviews of the texts, after which the two sides will decide the time, location and format of the signing ceremony, Chinese officials said earlier this week.