Chinese, US tech companies applaud phase-one trade deal

High-tech companies in China and the United States have applauded the signing of China-US phase-one trade agreement Wednesday, saying it has injected more certainty and stability in bilateral tech cooperation.

"We believe that signing the phase-one trade deal will bring certainty to the bilateral relationship between the two largest economies in the world," Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing told Xinhua in an interview.

"As a global company, we expect greater certainty and improvement in the business climate can follow the deal," he said.

China and the United States are intertwined in the field of technology and neither can separate from the other, he added.

After nearly two years of strenuous negotiations, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and US President Donald Trump inked the agreement on Wednesday at the White House.

The agreement ranges from expanding bilateral trade in agricultural products, manufactured goods, energy, services and further broadening market access, to enhancing the protection of intellectual property rights.

"The signing of the agreement helps avoid the risk of 'decoupling' of China-US technology cooperation," said Alex Liu, founder of the Research Methods and Data Science (RMDS) Lab, a leading data science research organization headquartered in Pasadena, California.

Liu, former chief data scientist of IBM, told Xinhua the implementation of the agreement will improve China's intellectual property rights protection, which helps to boost China-US scientific and technological cooperation.

Karen Thomas, president and CEO of Thomas Public Relations, Inc, a leading US agency in high-tech and consumer electronics, welcomed the phase-one trade deal.

"We have numerous Chinese partnerships and work well in collaboration with Chinese technology companies. We believe that this trade agreement will boost cooperation between US and Chinese tech companies and expect both countries to prosper from the deal," she told Xinhua in an interview.

The new agreement brings hope for many high-tech startups. Cao Hui, co-founder of Mutrics, a Chinese tech startup based in Shenzhen that designs and manufactures smart bluetooth music sunglasses, told Xinhua the company has encountered difficulties in the US market in the past year due to tariff hikes on Chinese products.

"The signing of the agreement is exciting news for the two countries' tech companies, bringing better prospects and more confidence for companies to thrive in each other's markets," he said.