China urges Japan to reduce political interference in bilateral trade cooperation: spokesperson

BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- China hopes Japan will reduce non-market restrictions and unnecessary political interference in bilateral economic and trade cooperation, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said here Friday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a daily press briefing after Japan's imports from China and exports to China in May both hit a record high for the month since 1979, according to data released by Japan's Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

China is Japan's largest export destination country, and Japan remains China's second biggest trading partner, Zhao said, adding that the trade volume between the neighbors was nearly 317.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, a year-on-year rise of 0.8 percent. Sino-Japanese trade increased 23.5 percent year on year in the first five months of this year.

According to a white paper released by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China recently, 63.5 percent of Japanese companies in China have achieved profitability under the epidemic, 92.8 percent of such companies have no plans to adjust their production in China due to the epidemic or changes in the trading environment, and 90.4 percent of these companies plan to further expand their procurement scale in China, he noted.

"Japan once actively participated in China's reform and opening-up, which brought huge benefits to China and Japan's own economic development," Zhao said, adding that as the most dynamic market and one with the most potential in the world, China will continue to work hard to create a more stable, fair, transparent and predictable investment and business environment for foreign investors.

Zhao also noted that recently, Japan cooperated with the United States to suppress the Chinese economy and implemented or is studying a series of policies to engage in the so-called decoupling of the industrial and supply chains from China, which created obstacles for the normal economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and brought risks to the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two nations' enterprises.

China hopes that Japan will safeguard its own interests and the international order, respect market and free trade rules, listen carefully to corporate voices, follow the trend of the times, and provide a fair, just, transparent, and non-discriminatory business environment, he said.

It is hoped that the Japanese government will maintain the security, reliability and stability of the global industrial and supply chains and reduce non-market restrictions and unnecessary political interference in China-Japan economic and trade cooperation, Zhao stressed.