(Photo: Reuters)

China firmly opposes the newly-unveiled USTR proposed tariff list under 301 investigation, and will adopt same scale of countermeasures on US exports, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced Wednesday morning. 

The statement followed what the US government proposed to slap a suggested upgraded tariff of 25 percent on Chinese imports of up to 50 billion USD.

"Disregarding strong representations by China, the United States announced tariff proposals that are completely unfounded, a typical unilateralist and protectionist practice that China strongly condemns and firmly opposes," the MOC responded.

The additional tariffs the US made put the mutually-beneficial and win-win nature of the China-US trade and economic cooperation in peril and hurt the communities of Chinese and American business and the interests of consumers, the statement stressed.

The reckless move impaired the interests of China, the United States and the world, and reneged on the basic principles and spirit of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it condemned.