China Accuses G20 Nations of 'Promoting Protectionism' Over Trade Imbalance Criticism

BEIJING —

China accused fellow members of the Group of 20 of "promoting protectionism" on Thursday, pushing back hard against a joint statement that singled out Beijing for relying too heavily on exports.

The statement came out of a two-day G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors that ended Tuesday. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said 19 of the 20 members, all but China, agreed to language calling the current trade setup an "unsustainable equilibrium" driven by a flood of cheap exports, according to CNBC. China was the only member to reject the statement, and the U.S. Treasury released it anyway, noting that Beijing objected to four specific paragraphs, including one urging countries with large trade surpluses to remove barriers to domestic consumption, the South China Morning Post reported.

Beijing Says Critics Are Using Trade as Pressure Tactic

China's Commerce Ministry called the criticism from the U.S. and Europe an excuse to squeeze and restrict China. "China believes that taking advantage of the G20 and other multilateral mechanisms to hype up so-called 'economic imbalances' and 'overcapacity' is essentially promoting protectionism," ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said in Chinese, according to a CNBC translation. "China is firmly opposed," she said at a weekly briefing, adding that the criticism would "disrupt the global economic and trade order."

Separately, People's Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng denied that Beijing deliberately runs up trade surpluses, and said the country would not devalue its currency, the yuan, to boost exports, according to state broadcaster CCTV, as reported by the South China Morning Post. "Addressing global imbalances requires all countries to promote their own structural reforms," Pan said. China's trade surplus hit a record $1.2 trillion last year, according to the South China Morning Post, and Bessent has called that figure unsustainable.

Dispute Comes Ahead of Xi's Trip to Washington

The exchange lands weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to travel to Washington, according to CNBC. Huang also used Thursday's briefing to demand the U.S. lift sanctions tied to Iran that have hit Chinese companies and citizens, and she warned France against enforcing a new law targeting low prices charged by Chinese e-commerce firms such as Temu, saying France "will bear all consequences" if it presses ahead. China is also negotiating with the European Union, which wants Beijing to narrow its trade deficit with the bloc by October or face what EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič called "harsher measures," according to CNBC.