Yawning gap

If anything, the Trump administration has also been embarking on a more confrontational path with China of late, with recent speeches and comments by officials such as US Vice-President Mike Pence causing rumblings of a new Cold War. “The distance between a leaders’ statement that they would like to work something out and would like to make some progress, and actually reaching a deal, is ginormous,” said Scott Kennedy, an expert on US-China relations at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.