China promises swift action on trade
From left, China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands on Nov. 9, 2017, during a meeting outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Trump is signaling that he won’t back down from his plan to escalate tariffs on China in January.
Wednesday suggesting that China may be ready to move ahead with some concessions. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that Chinese officials were preparing to resume imports of American soybeans and liquefied petroleum gas, citing unnamed officials.
Reuters reported Chinese state-owned oil trading firm Unipec would resume imports of U.S. oil by March, citing three unnamed sources. It quoted a Chinese official as saying that officials were waiting for leaders’ return from overseas before publicizing details of the agreement.
Such measures might be seen as good-faith gestures as negotiations unfold, but would not meet Washington’s demands for broad changes to China’s industrial policy, in particular its state support for key high-tech industrial firms, forced transfers of technology by American companies doing business in China, and tolerance or tacit encouragement of intellectual property theft.
The bruising trade war
has seen tit-for-tat tariffs ramped up, first by the Trump administration and then by China. In a year of canceled meetings, chilly dialogue and recriminations, hopes for a breakthrough were pinned on the face-to-face meeting between Xi and Trump. But the big challenge will come in the months ahead, depending on whether China offers enough concessions to reach a deal.
The U.S. supported China when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, expecting that it would shift rapidly to an open, more transparent economy, changes Washington complains never eventuated.
China’s Made in China 2025 plan – Xi’s ambitious policy to see China emerge as a global leader in key high-tech industries – is perceived in Washington as a threat to the United States’ global power, as is his Belt and Road infrastructure initiative that has extended China’s reach across the world as it offers loans and underwrites building projects in dozens of nations.