By Gwynne Dyer – International treaties are serious business. A lot of time and effort goes into negotiating them and they become part of international law. It’s very rare for a politician to say, only a couple of years after negotiating a treaty, that his country always felt it was “a little bit provisional and open to review.
Even when the Chinese government and chairman Xi Jinping have still to congratulate president elect Joe Biden on his victory, Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party English language newspaper published on Sunday a set of suggestions and warnings on the future relations with a new US Democrat administration in Washington, but also ”popping some of the bubble’s from the rough times with president Trump.
President Donald Trump signaled a further deterioration of his relationship with China over the novel coronavirus, saying he has no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping right now and going so far as to suggest he could even cut ties with the world’s second-largest economy.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he opposed renegotiating the US-China “Phase 1” trade deal after a Chinese state-run newspaper reported some government advisers in Beijing were urging fresh talks and possibly invalidating the agreement.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday raising tariffs on China is “certainly an option” as he considers ways to retaliate for the spread of the COVID-19 out of Wuhan, China.
China said on Tuesday it would accept applications for new tariff exemptions for 696 products imported from the United States including key agricultural and energy products such as pork, beef, soybeans, liquefied natural gas and crude oil.
China said on Thursday it will halve punitive tariffs on US$75 billion in US imports from Feb 14, a month after Beijing and Washington signed a truce in their long-running trade war.
The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday finalized a new rule to impose anti-subsidy duties on products from countries that it has determined undervalue their currencies against the dollar, including potentially China.
China's economy weakened to its slowest pace in three decades last year as weaker domestic demand and trade tensions with the United States took their toll, official data showed on Friday.
Wall Street climbed to record highs on Friday, with major indexes turning in their strongest weekly gains since August, after strong U.S. housing data and signs of resilience in the Chinese economy raised hopes of a rebound in global growth.