Coming to the end of 2018, the atmosphere in the People’s Republic has become increasingly dominated by Xi’s presence and image. During the Forum for China African Cooperation in September, an already infamous cover of the official People’s Daily had Xi’s name in headlines almost 20 times on the front page.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a temporary trade ceasefire to allow time for more negotiations. The move means that U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods will not rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1, from 10 percent currently. As part of the deal, China agreed to buy “a very substantial amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Also read: Trump’s Slump: What The US And Chinese Leaders’ Body Language Tells Us About Their G20 talks
After years of economic symbiosis in which the US purchased low-cost Chinese imports and China purchased US Treasuries, China has begun to pursue the prerogatives of a superpower, and the US has responded in kind. As a result, both countries are becoming more alike, particularly in their belief that there can be only one winner.
Trump, by standing firm in Argentina this weekend, can accelerate the trend of disengagement of the American and Chinese companies. Yet it is not only the American president who is pushing factories out of China. Xi Jinping is also helping the cause of disengagement by punishing American companies in China, turning Fortune 500 behemoths into potential hostages with thus an added reason to leave the country.
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Also Read – The Trump-Xi Meeting Isn’t Just About Economics
During its 40 years of reform, China has mastered learning by doing, engaged in bold policy experimentation, and become steadily more integrated into global economy. It will need to bring all of this experience to bear, as it attempts to avoid the pitfalls that could derail its effort to achieve high-income status.
Chinese and American officials may have spent weeks preparing for the high-stakes summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump this weekend, but any hopes of resolving the current trade war may ultimately hinge on their personal chemistry. Their encounter in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G20 summit will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in nearly a year – and the first since Trump started the trade war over the summer.
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Facing escalating geopolitical competition with the US, China is scrambling to win friends in East Asia. But while China’s neighbours will undoubtedly welcome any respite from Chinese belligerence, they will not be fooled by sweet talk – or even sweet trade deals.
The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit ended without agreement on a joint communique for the first time in its history as the escalating rivalry between the United States and China dominated proceedings. The impasse emerged a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping and the US Vice-President Mike Pence had blamed their rivals in the ongoing trade war in back-to-back speeches.
Photo by Yang Shuo on Unsplash
Since Deng launched the opening-up policy in 1978, China has transformed itself from a backward, agrarian economy and politically isolated state into the world’s second-largest economy and an important player with global interests and influence. For instance, in the 30 years from 1949 to 1978, only 200,000 Chinese people travelled abroad. Last year alone, they made 130.5 million trips overseas, while foreigners made 139 million visits to China. The statistics speak volumes about how China needs the world, and vice versa.
The Andaman Sea is flanked by the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands in the West, Myanmar to the north, the Thai-Malay peninsula to the east, and the Sumatra island to the south. It funnels into the Straits of Malacca that connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The large amount of shipping that enters the Andaman Sea from the east heads to Singapore, from where it turns the Pacific Ocean. Long seen as a political backwater, the Andaman Sea is rapidly regaining its strategic salience.
