Time to transform hard-earned positive consensus into actions, solutions and results: China Daily editorial

The eighth round of economic and trade consultations between China and the United States, held in New York and Washington from Sept 20 to 23, produced a substantial list of agreements that are conducive to managing economic and trade relations between the world's two largest economies.

After months of tariff threats, technology restrictions and countermeasures, which had escalated tensions, achieving those outcomes has not been easy.

The most important development is institutional, as it suggests an attempt to escape the cycle of fight and talk. Alongside a reciprocal tariff reduction agreement covering roughly $30 billion of goods on each side, the two teams have agreed to establish a Board of Trade, a Board of Investment and the China-US AI Dialogue. These are aimed at turning intermittent bargaining into more regular mechanisms for exchanges and consultations.

The Board of Trade will address the reciprocal tariff arrangement, under which duties on about 90 percent of the products concerned on each side are to fall to most-favored-nation level, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. An agricultural working group has been established under the Board of Trade to tackle market access and regulatory barriers. The Board of Investment will provide a channel for discussing investment opportunities and policy predictability. The first discussions under the China-US AI Dialogue have been held focusing on the risks and benefits related to artificial intelligence.

Each mechanism gives the two sides a channel to discuss disagreements before they metastasize into frictions. Taken together, they make it less likely that a dispute in one sector will affect the entire economic relationship.

Financial services, AI and agriculture are strategic concerns, and give substance to the promise that the eighth round of consultations would directly address some of the most consequential issues. The proof of the various institutional channels' worth will be in the benefits attained from the practical arrangements they will finally introduce. But the willingness to establish working-level channels in areas where mutual concerns are considerable should not be taken lightly.

Coal trade provides an illustration of the opportunities available. The two sides have agreed to include Chinese imports of US coal in the reciprocal tariff framework, facilitating purchases in 2027 and 2028. For China, US coal can supplement domestic supply; for the US, it means revenue and employment. The agreement is a reminder that differences in resource endowments and industrial structures can create commercial opportunities even when differences persist. The potential for mutually beneficial trade is not exhausted by the familiar arguments over manufacturing and technology.

The consultations also produced an extension of the Kuala Lumpur joint arrangement to suspend some of their tariff and nontariff measures until Jan 10, 2027, and an agreement to continue discussing a mutually acceptable solution. This should translate into greater policy predictability for companies and the world market.

Since economic cooperation is sustained by people who travel, work and engage, the agreement to maintain communication on increasing direct passenger flights also reinforces the view that the two sides are trying to make their consensus tangible on the ground.

But a list of agreements is not the same as a stable economic relationship. The tariff reductions require domestic legal procedures and simultaneous implementation. The new boards must convene, the agricultural working group must address outstanding barriers, and the investment dialogue must deliver greater transparency. The extension of the Kuala Lumpur arrangement buys time, not a permanent settlement. Businesses and markets will judge these consultations by whether commitments become actions, solutions and results.

There is also an obstacle that cannot be ignored. Washington's extensive blacklists, technology restrictions and secondary sanctions, including measures affecting Chinese businesses through its dealings with third countries, risk undermining the spirit of the agreements. Such restrictions should not become excuses for failing to implement them. Nor should unilateral pressure or attempts to obstruct China's high-quality development be allowed to overwhelm the joint endeavors to stabilize the economic ties.

The US' accumulated restrictions targeting China are not cost-free instruments of leverage. They are increasingly liabilities that complicate commercial decisions, fragment supply chains and constrain the very efforts that the two sides have now agreed to make to manage their competition.

Given the complexity of their economic ties, getting this far after protracted contention is no small matter. But the real test begins now. The new institutions must be used, the agreed measures implemented and the remaining differences addressed through sustained dialogue.

Only when the text of the agreements becomes tangible economic progress will this round of consultations deserve to be remembered not merely as a successful negotiation, but as the booster for a more stable and sustainable China-US economic relationship based on respect, fairness and reciprocity.