Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, had a phone call on Saturday with Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, according to a statement by state-owned news agency Xinhua, which was subsequently published on the official government website.
According to the statement, Wang accused the US of using political means to disrupt the normal operation of Chinese companies and called for mutual respect.
“Wang Yi pointed out that China has always been willing to resolve trade conflicts through negotiations, but negotiation should be on equal ground,” the article read. “In any negotiation, China must protect its own just interests, respond to the wishes of its people, and protect the fundamental principles of international relations.”
Meanwhile in Beijing, since late last week the state media outlet CCTV has been replacing its scheduled programming with films about the Chinese army fighting the US in the Korean War.
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He Tingbo, president of Huawei chip subsidiary HiSilicon, wrote to the employees on Friday early morning. The letter followed US president Donald Trump’s executive order last week and the US Department of Commerce’s updated ‘entity list’, which restricted Huawei from buying components from the US.
According to the letter, the company made an “extreme survival contingency plan” years ago, hedging against the possibility that one day all advanced US chips and technology would be inaccessible to the company.
“We never expected this would happen,” the letter read. “Many HiSilicon employees started the most solemn long march to develop this ‘spare tire’ for our company’s survival.”
He promised that by using this “spare tire”, the company will be able to ensure a continuous supply of crucial components for most products.
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Pan Gongsheng, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), said during an interview that the central bank had the ability and confidence to keep the renminbi exchange rate within a reasonable range.
The offshore renminbi dropped to 6.935 against the US dollar on Monday morning.
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In the first quarter, net inflows from offshore investors to onshore financial institutions reached Rmb5.1bn ($737m), according to data published by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) on Friday. Net outflows from onshore financial institutions to offshore entities totalled Rmb820m.
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The Chinese interbank bond market saw a total of Rmb3.6tr new issuance in April. This included Rmb465.9bn of government bonds, Rmb226.7bn of local government bonds, Rmb784.3bn of financial bonds, Rmb967.2bn of credit bonds and Rmb108.6bn of asset-backed securities. The remaining Rmb1.1tr were certificates of deposit, according to a monthly market report by the PBoC.
Average daily trading in the interbank bond market reached Rmb800.6bn, a 72.6% increase year-on-year. The average volume in the exchange market reached Rmb35.8bn, a 51.49% increase.