WASHINGTON, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said Wednesday that China has never deliberately sought a trade surplus with the United States.

In an article published in the USA Today daily, Cui said China's trade surplus, the issue at the center of U.S. criticism against China, was not produced intentionally, since "the flow of trade is determined by the market."

Also, "the fact that the U.S. government curbs high-tech exports to China makes the deficit even bigger," Cui said.

"Deficits are not products of ill intention, nor are they necessarily bad for an economy," he explained.

"Generally, they result from how resources are allocated in a globalized economy and are natural reflections of the global value chain," he said. "Besides some structural reasons, such as the low savings and high consumption rates America maintains, the role of the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency inevitably leads to trade deficits."

But having a deficit does not mean the United States is losing, Cui said. "On the contrary, thanks to the trade with China, American families have access to more, higher quality, lower cost products."

As an example, he said in 2015 alone, trade with China lowered prices in the United States by up to 1.5 percent, saving each family 850 dollars on average.

Cui's article came as the world's two biggest economies have been locked in a trade dispute. The United States has also triggered trade tensions with other economies.