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China's Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council unveiled on Thursday the fifth list of 81 tax-exempted goods from the US imports that had been hit with additional tariffs as countermeasures in response to the US 301 investigation against China, starting on September 17 until April 16, 2022. 

The 81 goods on the list come in wide categories, including food, lubricating oil, timber, publications, mechanic devices for agriculture and medicines.

China has lifted additional tariffs on several lists of US imported goods, with the previous tax-exemption list containing 79 goods unveiled in May, and 65 goods in February.

Last February, China adjusted the tariff rate on about $75 billion worth of imported goods from the US that had been selected for additional retaliatory tariffs. The additional tariff rate was reduced to 5 percent on goods previously hit with a 10 percent tariff, and to 2.5 percent for those with a 5 percent tariff.

However, the tariff exemption might be ended in the future if the Biden administration responds to China's kind move with new tariffs, experts said.

According to US media reports, the Biden administration is discussing whether to launch a new round of Section 301 investigations on China's taxation.

China has always believed that unilateral trade and protectionism is not good for China, for the US or for the recovery of the world economy, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, Shu Jueting, stated during a regular press conference on Thursday in response to the report.

"What we understand about the tariff is that it must follow the rule of reciprocity that if the US lifts it, so will we correspondingly," Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday.