China will not use the yuan’s exchange rate as a bargaining chip to resolve trade disputes with the United States, a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

China won’t resort to currency depreciation for competitive purposes in trade and hopes the U.S. can respect market rules and not politicize currency issues, Geng Shuang, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a routine press briefing.

Geng’s comments followed reports that the U.S. is pressing China to keep the yuan stable as part of an agreement intended to end the countries’ trade war.

The U.S. is seeking a pledge from China that it will not devalue the yuan to counter American tariffs, Bloomberg reported. Officials from the two countries are discussing how to address currency policy in a memorandum of understanding that would form the basis of a U.S.-China trade deal, Bloomberg reported.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit Washington this week for another round of trade negotiations, his second trip in three weeks, as the two countries race the clock to strike a deal to avert an escalation in the trade war before a March 1 deadline. The talks follow a round of negotiations that ended in Beijing last week without a deal but with signs of progress.

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