Chinese and American Anchors Square Off on Trade

Hosts from Fox Business Network and Chinese state television discussed U.S.-China trade in a prime-time broadcast, which aired live in the U.S. and on a delay in China.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the 15-minute debate featured a back-and-forth between two hosts: Fox Business’s Trish Regan and Liu Xin, who hosts an English-language current-affairs show for China Global Television Network, a state-run outlet aimed at overseas audiences.

The Wednesday event got its start on social media. Ms. Liu accused Ms. Regan of getting her facts wrong about the trade dispute, which has soured relations between the world’s largest economies and disturbed global markets.

Some Chinese social media users congratulated Ms. Liu on her poise and said Ms. Regan was rude. Some Twitter users in the U.S. suggested the two women should resolve the trade dispute themselves. Others said the debate was too polite.

The conversation began awkwardly when Ms. Regan introduced Ms Liu as a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Ms. Liu said she isn’t a party member and doesn’t speak for the CCP.

“I learned English because I had American teachers,” Ms. Liu said in response to Ms. Regan’s questions about forced technology transfers.

My thanks to Xin @thepointwithlx for joining me tonight to discuss the #China U.S. #trade relationship! #TrishRegan You can watch ENTIRE segment HERE: https://t.co/tYiStm60le

— Trish Regan (@trish_regan) May 30, 2019

Ms. Liu tried to play down the role of the Chinese government in business, saying state-owned enterprises are playing “an important but increasingly smaller role” in the economy, adding that the vast majority of Chinese people work for and innovate at private companies. Getting rid of tariffs, she said, “would be a wonderful idea,” but that would be complicated in a global economy.

Against a scrolling list of intellectual property theft cases filed in the U.S., Ms. Liu said, “I do not deny that there are IP infringement, there are copyright issues, there are piracy and even theft of commercial secrets.”