From trade war to global anarchy?

https://youtu.be/03D-0uDOj_c

https://youtu.be/N8IyDSrMY3w

The arrest of a top Huawei executive may spark a conflict that could cripple America's rival and unleash chaos in the world order.

WE shouldn’t be misled into thinking that the “trade war” between the United States and China is being resolved following their presidents’ recent meeting.

Instead, President Donald Trump is taking the conflict way beyond tariffs into many other areas in a comprehensive attempt to stop or slow down China’s economic development. This has implications not only for China and countries like Malaysia, which are integrated into the Chinese production chains.

The evolving conflict spells the end of the Western countries’ belief in the win-win benefits of trade and investment liberalisation. It accompanies the emergence of an alternative view that China and some other countries are not partners after all but rivals that must be checked.

Just as Trump and China Presi­dent Xi Jinping were sitting down for dinner on the sidelines of the G20 summit to thrash out a “truce” to their tariff war, the Canadian authorities were arresting the daughter of the owner of Huawei, China’s giant technology company whose smartphone sales are now bigger than that of Apple’s iPhone and second globally only to Samsung phones.

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was in transit at Vancouver airport when she was detained at the request of the US on the grounds that her company violated US sanctions against Iran years ago. Only after many days was she released on bail, and she has to wear an electronic tracker.

The Chinese government called the action “very nasty” and Chinese citizens are outraged. It would be equivalent to China arresting Melinda Gates, co-head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for alleged violation of China’s regulations on healthcare. In the whole Western world, there would have been a tremendous outcry and threats of very dire consequences.

Yet the Chinese are supposed to accept Meng’s arrest as a routine matter that is unrelated to the trade war. It cannot be sheer coincidence that years after the alleged crime, the arrest took place at the exact hour that Xi was having dinner with Trump to work out a truce.

The incident reminds us of the US accusation against another Chinese tech leader, ZTE Corp, in 2017 of breaking the same sanctions. A ban was imposed on ZTE from buying telecom chips from US company Qulcomm, which paralysed the company for weeks. Only much later was a political deal struck, with ZTE paying a fine before resuming production.

With China, Trump is concerned not so much with his country’s big trade deficit, but more with the threat to America’s global supremacy.

Suspicions over China’s global ambitions became certainty in the fevered minds of Trump and his hawkish advisers when Xi moved from the rhetoric of the Chinese dream to the concrete industrial plan of Made in China 2025.

This was to get Chinese firms to be world leaders in 10 high-tech sectors, including artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, electric cars and aerospace.

Alarmed by the prospect of Chin­ese domination of the commanding industries of the future, Trump has been countering the ways by which China is developing its world-class companies. This is through trade, investments, subsidies and support, and acquisition of technologies and intellectual property.

The extra tariffs are meant to inhi­bit Chinese exports. The new Export Control Reform Act increa­ses powers to regulate US exports of emerging and foundational technologies of importance to national security, and can be used to ban sales of components and technologies to China.

To prevent Chinese companies from buying into US companies (and acquiring their technologies), the review powers of the US Com­mittee on Foreign Investment have been strengthened.

Last month, new national security rules were passed to allow review of small minority investments into sensitive US technologies, including biotechnology, nanotechnology and wireless communications equipment. The aim is to hinder Chinese firms from buying even small stakes in US tech start-ups.

The US has also been blocking attempts by Chinese firms to take over or buy controlling stakes in US companies, also on national security grounds. For example, the same com­mittee recently refused to app­rove a US$1.2bil (RM5bil) deal bet­ween Money Gram, a US money transfer company, and Ant Financial, a Chin­ese electronic payment company.

European countries and Australia are also increasingly restricting Chinese companies from investing in or taking over domestic firms.

Moreover, the US has banned the use of Huawei’s 5G-related equipment, with Australia and New Zealand following suit.

US officials have also been touring Europe to warn against choosing Huawei equipment, leading to growing concerns over the risk of Chinese spying and the security of 5G networks that use Huawei technology.

When slapping extra tariffs on Chinese products, Trump accused China of intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer.

The US actions cited national security grounds or used the unilateral Section 301 of its domestic trade law. Most World Trade Organ­isation (WTO) law experts view these actions to be a violation of various WTO laws.

Many countries have taken cases against the US in the WTO.

Perhaps feeling that the WTO rules constrain several of its planned actions, the US has moved to cripple the organisation’s dispute settlement system by blocking its appellate body from adding new members.

By the end of 2019, that body will not have enough members left and the WTO will become ineffective as it loses its strongest function.

There would be no more formal way within the multilateral trade system to legally challenge the US actions against China or other countries. Or for any country to challenge the actions of another. The system would break down.

Then the global trade order would slip from rules-based to each country for itself. America first, France first, Britain first, are already in vogue, and many others will follow suit.

The trade war that started with some aluminium and steel may thus snowball into a world of anarchy, where only might prevails.

It is an awful scenario, but not an unrealistic one to ponder upon as 2018 draws to a close.

It is not too late to halt this trend, but something has to give or change drastically in the US, if we are to have even a small chance to avoid disaster.



Global Trends  by martin khor

Martin Khor is adviser of the Third World Network. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

About TWN - Third World Network

Escalating US-China trade war threatens global trading system


 


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Internet Protocol Version 9 第一代互联网 IPv9, Quantum Computing, AI and Blockchain: The Future of IT

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Internet Protocol Version 9 第一代互联网 IPv9 

Great news and why Washington is harboring so much envy and hatred against China.

After watching the video "National Sovereign Network IPV9 officially unveiled", I realized why cyber security is national security and what enabled the US Government to amass so much wealth from every other country in the world.

Day after day and each time we surf the internet, read our emails, WeChat, QQ, WhatsApp, etc., and use WiFi for whatever reasons including video streaming on smartphones and smartTVs, we have to use the United States Internet protocol IPV4. This is the parent server and the main root server for WWW or the worldwide Internet.

China had signed an agreement with the United States to rent the worldwide Internet for 20 years from the year 2000. Every year, China and the rest of the world have been, and currently still pay rents to the United States monopoly. The annual rents are increasing with the ever rising increase in usage, including 500 billion in 2007 and 1.8 trillion in 2017. By the end of 2020, it is estimated to be even more which is only the rent from China alone! Every other country in the world are also paying rents for Internet usage to the US. How much is that transfer of wealth! How can a country not be rich when it possesses such a humungus monopoly? If the ordinary American people ain’t receiving a share of this fabulous windfall, then their country’s elites like Trump, Clinton, Bush, Wall Street banksters like Goldman Sachs, etc., can perhaps be made to divulge their secret.

Thankfully for China (also quite likely for Third World countries) by 2014, China independently developed the IPV9 parent server and the main root server with independent intellectual property rights. Having achieved this quantum leap, China tried to negotiate with the United States to introduce to the world its new IPV9 protocol. Not surprisingly, it was rejected.

Then in 2015, a team of Chinese delegation of technological experts unveiled and gave a test introduction of IPV9 to members of the UN General Assembly. The team of experts were able to prove that both the security and quality of IPV9 far exceeded that of the United States’s IPV4 and IPV6.

The two nations were then given the opportunity to present their case at the end of which the UN Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of China’s IPV9.

After further discussions, the UN General Assembly handed over management of the worldwide internet to China for 100 years. That is to say, when the current lease with the US expires in 2020, China will assume leadership and management of the worldwide internet with its superlative IPV9 parent server and the main root server.

All the receiving and transmitting stations in China have now been completed. To date, 25 countries have signed lease agreements with China with the rest of the world to follow. In 2019, IPV9 will be put into trial operation. When the lease with the US expires in 2020, the old and outdated American IPV4 will be closed and China's new generation Internet, namely the “Internet of Things IPV9”, will be up and running. If Internet IPV4 and IPV6 made the United States brilliant, then the Internet of Things IPV9 will bring immense glory and blessings to China and the rest of the world for the next hundred years!

Quantum Computing, AI and Blockchain: The Future of IT - Talks at Google

https://youtu.be/MozDSajpLTY

Prof. Shoucheng Zhang discusses three pillars of information technology: quantum computing, AI and blockchain. He presents the fundamentals of crypto-economic science, and answers questions such as: What is the intrinsic value of a medium of exchange? What is the value of consensus and how does it emerge? How can math be used to create distributed self-organizing consensus networks to create a data-marketplace for AI and machine learning?

Prof. Zhang is the JG Jackson and CJ Wood professor of physics at Stanford University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He discovered a new state of matter called topological insulator in which electrons can conduct along the edge without dissipation, enabling a new generation of electronic devices with much lower power consumption. For this ground breaking work he received numerous international awards, including the Buckley Prize, the Dirac Medal and Prize, the Europhysics Prize, the Physics Frontiers Prize and the Benjamin Franklin Medal.

He is also the founding chairman of DHVC venture capital fund, which invests in AI, blockchain, mobile internet, big data, AR/VR, genomics and precision medicine, sharing economy and robotics.


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Huawei Surprise goldfish in a bowl

> https://youtu.be/WvrXDbRy8dU  https://youtu.be/OzCKON8KT2E https://youtu.be/SaQKhepUEOM https://youtu.be/2KpC1OzIYyM

Uncertain future: In this courtroom sketch, Meng sits beside a translator during a bail hearing in Vancouver. She faces extradition to the US on charges of trying to evade US sanctions on Iran. – AP 

The arrest of Huawei 'heiress' has thrown a rare spotlight on the family of the reclusive smartphone giant founder, Ren Zhengfei.

WHEN Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou appeared on Wednesday in a Vancouver courtroom, clad in an unbranded green tracksuit, the moment was witnessed by a single reporter from the local Vancouver Sun newspaper who happened to notice her name on the hearings list that morning.

By the end of the day, Meng’s arrest in Canada at the request of Washington was the biggest story in the world.

And when her bail hearing resumed on Friday, Meng entered court to see about 100 reporters, craning to look at her through two layers of bulletproof glass.

Meng who faces extradition to the United States, was charged for helping Huawei allegedly cover up violations of US sanctions on Iran.

Like many top Chinese executives, Meng is a mysterious figure even in her home country, but the 46-year-old chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies had been widely tipped to one day take the helm of the tech giant her father founded.

That was until her shock arrest, a move that has entangled her in the protracted diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Crucially, Meng is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei – one of China’s leading businessmen, an ex-People’s Liberation Army officer and an elected member of the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

In other words, Meng is part of China’s elite.

Her father Ren moves in the highest government circles in China and founded Huawei in 1988, after he retired from the Chinese armed forces. Born into a rural family in a remote mountainous town in the southwestern province of Guizhou, Ren rose to the equivalent rank of a deputy regimental chief in the PLA and served until 1983, according to his official Huawei biography.

Officials in some governments, particularly the United States, have voiced concern that his company is close to the Chinese military and government. Huawei has repeatedly insisted Beijing has no influence over it.

Ren is one of the most watched entrepreneurs in China and was on Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and again in 2013.

But like his elder daughter, Ren has largely kept a low profile.

Ren has married three times. His first wife was Meng Jun, daughter of a former senior official in Sichuan province, Meng Dongbuo; she bore Ren two children: Sabrina Meng Wanzhou and a son, Meng Ping.

Meng’s current wife is Yao Ling, who gave him a younger daughter, Annabel Yao, 20. In a rare move, the three posed last month for a family photoshoot for French lifestyle magazine Paris Match. Annabel, a Harvard computer science student, became a sensation at last month’s Le Bal des Debutantes (or Crillon Ball) in Paris.

Ren’s third wife is Su Wei who, according to Chinese media reports, is a millennial who was formerly his secretary.

Interestingly, all his children opted not to take on their father’s surname – Meng adopted her mother’s surname after her parents divorced. According to Chinese news websites, Meng’s brother Ping, who also works for Huawei, followed her in taking their mother’s surname to “avoid unnecessary attention” – though the son was also known as Ren Ping in the past.

(This practice is not uncommon among the families of China’s elite. The co-founder of Chinese auction house China Guardian, Wang Yannan, opted not to take her father’s surname – she is the daughter of late Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang.)

Born in 1972, Meng joined the company in 1993, obtained a master’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1998, and rose up the ranks over the years, mostly holding financial roles.

In her first media appearance before the Chinese press in 2013, Meng said she had first joined the company as a secretary“whose job was just to take calls”.

In the interview with China’s 21st Century Business Herald, Meng said she began her first job at China Construction Bank after graduating with her first degree in 1992.

Arrested Meng: Like her father, the Huawei CFO had led a quiet life, out of the spotlight. – Reuters

“I joined Huawei one year later because a branch closed its operations due to the business integration [of CCB],” said Meng, describing her early jobs in Huawei as “very trivial”.

Meng has served in various roles at the company since, until her latest role as the Hong Kong-based CFO of Huawei.

In 2003, Meng established Huawei’s globally unified finance organisation, with standardised structures, financial processes, financial systems, and IT platforms.

Since 2005, Meng has led the founding of five shared service centers around the world, and she was also the driver behind completion of a global payment center in Shenzhen, China. These centres have boosted Huawei’s accounting efficiency and monitoring quality, providing accounting services to sustain the company’s rapid overseas expansion.

Meng has also been in charge of the integrated financial services (IFS) transformation program, an eight-year partnership between Huawei and IBM since 2007. This has helped Huawei develop its data systems and rules for resource allocation, and improve operating efficiency and internal controls.

In recent years, Meng has focused on advancing detailed financial management at Huawei, working to align these efforts with the company’s long-term development plans.

Meng’s importance at Huawei became apparent in 2011, when she was first named as a board member. Company insiders describe her as capable and hardworking. Earlier this year, Huawei promoted Meng, to vice-chairwoman as part of a broader reshuffle. Meng is one of four executives who hold the vice-chair role, while retaining her CFO position. Despite assertions by Ren that none of his family members would succeed him in the top job, it is widely speculated that she was being groomed to take over the reins of the company eventually.

Married with a son and a daughter, Meng’s revelation that her husband did not work in the industry, dispelled the speculation she was married to a senior Huawei executive.

Meng did not conduct public interviews before 2013 and has seldom mentioned her personal life until recently, when she used her son to illustrate the importance of persistence.

“My son did not want to go swimming one day and he almost knelt on the ground and begged my husband so that he would not have to go. But he was rejected,” Meng said in a speech at Chongqing international school in 2016. “Now my son is proud to represent his school in swimming competitions.”

Meng recently made a speech at a Singapore academic conference in 2018, in which she talked of Huawei’s future role in technology development.

“Without universities, the world would be left in darkness. Without industry, science would be left in the ivory tower,” said Meng. “The fourth industrial revolution is on the horizon and artificial intelligence is one of its core enabling technologies. Huawei is lucky to be part of it.”

While her brother, Meng Ping, as well as her father’s younger brother and his current wife all work at Huawei and related companies, none has held such senior management roles.

“The other family members are in the back office, Sabrina is CFO and sits on the board,” a Huawei source said. “So she is viewed as the boss’s most likely successor.”

But her fate now is uncertain.

She faces up to 30 years’ jail for the alleged crime. Her lawyer in Canada, David Martin, had told the court that Meng posed no flight risk and should be granted bail. To flee would shame her in front of her father and all of China, said Martin.

“Her father would not recognise her. Her colleagues would hold her in contempt. She would be a pariah,” he said.

Meng leaned forward in her seat and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

When the hearing adjourned, she was led away with her head bowed, a goldfish in a bowl that is the biggest story in the world. – South China Morning Post

Younger Huawei daughter: ‘I’m just a normal girl’

Arresting Yao: ‘My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this.’

JUST last month, the reclusive Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei made headlines by appearing in French lifestyle magazine Paris Match with his younger daughter and current wife.

The daughter, Annabel Yao, 20, posed with a smile in front of a grand piano with her mother, identified by the magazine as Yao Ling, and Ren, who wore a blue shirt with his hand resting on her shoulder.

Suddenly, the whole family are making headlines again – even if for quite different reasons.

Few outsiders had previously heard of the younger daughter, a Harvard computer science student and ballerina. But Yao recently made a high-profile appearance at the exclusive Le Bal Debutante ball in Paris.

While Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris each year is a nod to the tradition of young society ladies entering the elite social scene of Europe, these days it courts modern debutantes, aged 16 to 21, who are chosen for their looks, brains and famous parents – prominent in business, entertainment and politics.

They parade in glamorous couture gowns, waltz with their cavaliers – young men who accompany the “debs” for the evening – and take part in photo shoots and interviews.

The schedule at the event, organised by Ophélie Renouard, is full of young women such as Baroness Ludmilla von Oppenheim, from Germany; Julia McCaw, daughter of AT&T founder Craig McCaw; and Yao – one of three debutantes chosen for the opening waltz this year.

“I definitely treated this as a debut to the world,” said Yao after the ball. “From now on, I’ll no longer be this girl living in her own world, I’ll be stepping into the adult world where I have to watch my own actions and have my actions be watched by others.”

Today’s Le Bal, is a diverse affair, a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite. Of the 19 debutantes of 2018, there were young ladies from India and America, Europeans from Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany, as well as Hong Kong’s Angel Lee, Kayla Uytengsu from the Philippines and China’s Yao.

Yao – who has lived in Britain, Hong Kong and Shanghai – was one of several Chinese debutantes in recent years. Hollywood offspring, such as the daughters of actors Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, have also become Le Bal regulars.

“All the girls were down-to-earth, easygoing, helpful and outgoing. No one was pretentious,” said Yao.

“All of them attended top universities or high schools like Stanford, Brown and Columbia, so it’s a group of girls who are privileged, but also work really hard.”

 
Diverse affair: Today’s ‘Le Bal’ is a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite like Yao (far right, front row).

As they swapped their jeans for tiaras and couture gowns and trade teenage antics for waltzing, the girls got to play fairytale princesses for three days and make their grand debut in high society.

They all arrived in Paris two days before the ball to meet, socialise with other girls and their cavaliers (Yao’s cavalier was the young Count Gaspard de Limburg-Stirum), rehearse and take part in portrait sessions.

Girls are given questionnaires about the fashion styles they like, and then choose from a selection. Yao donned a champagne gold J Mendel gown.

“An American designer with a very French style I wanted something modern,” she said. “I’m not super girlie inside, so I prefer something more chic and not so princessy It’s very elegant, and I’m not a fan of very [strongly] pigmented hues. I also loved the tulle texture of the dress, as it reminds me of a ballerina.”

“I definitely feel very honoured to be included, as there are only 19 girls in the world this year,” Yao added. “It means I have to work harder, try to accomplish great things in my life and be a role model for other girls.”

She said: “As people who have more privilege than others, it’s more important for us to help those with less opportunity. I want to get involved in philanthropy and charity I still consider myself a normal girl; it’s important for me to work hard and better myself every day.

“My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this. I usually live like a normal student.”

Computer science is a heavy subject with a high workload, so she studies a lot. Her spare time is often taken up at the Harvard Ballet company (she’s been dancing since childhood). “I try to dance as much as possible,” she said.

A quick glance at the Ivy League student’s social media shows her jetting around the world wearing Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent, but she’s quick to show her serious side. This summer, she did an internship at Microsoft “on a team focusing on machine learning and image recognition”.

However, she noted: “As much as I enjoy coding, I enjoy personal interactions a lot I have a passion for fashion, PR and entertainment.”

In the future, she sees herself working on the business side of technology. “I’ll try to integrate the tech knowledge I have,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll be a software engineer but maybe I’ll be more on the management side. I enjoy building connections.” – South China Morning Post

Growing stronger, opening wider key to resolving Huawei crisis

Huawei is now facing its most severe test since it became the world-renowned innovative tech company.

With executive's arrest, US wants to stifle Huawei

The Chinese government should seriously go behind the US tendency to abuse legal procedures to suppress China's high-tech enterprises. It should increase interaction with the US and exert pressure when necessary. China has been exercising restraint, but the US cannot act recklessly. US President Donald Trump should rein in the hostile activities of some Americans who may imperil Sino-US relations. 

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Huawei CFO arrest violates human rights as US takes aim at Huawei, the real trade war with China

In custody: A profile of Meng is displayed on a computer at a Huawei store in Beijing. The Chinese government, speaking through its embassy in Canada, strenuously objected to the arrest, and demanded Meng’s immediate release.
— AP

China-US trade truce set to benefit world

Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

https://youtu.be/6g_SpU3c5rU

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump's meeting in Argentina on Saturday yielded results that boosted the confidence of both countries and the world. The US agreed to hold off on raising tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent and the two countries decided to start a new round of negotiations in the next three months. The meeting has prevented bilateral relations from going into a nosedive, showing how rewarding diplomacy between heads of state can be.

The meeting lasted an hour longer than expected, created a cordial atmosphere for talks and ended with a spontaneous group photo. A White House statement released on Saturday said the meeting was "highly successful."

These details are very indicative. After US Vice President Mike Pence delivered a stinging speech on its China policy at the Hudson Institute in the beginning of October, many worried that a new Cold War between the two countries was looming. But now, the Xi-Trump meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit has shown that Beijing and Washington have the wisdom and ability to avoid the shadow of the Cold War shroud the world once again.

The compromise between China and the US is a wise decision to deal with their respective domestic challenges. The intensified trade war in the past few months upset farmers, enterprises and financial institutions of both countries. US farmers planted 89.1 million acres of soybeans this year, some were reportedly letting their crops rot as they were unable to sell them to their biggest buyer and the storage costs rose amid the trade conflict with China.

In addition, US companies involved in the international economy are suffering because of a worsening global economic environment. Although the US economy has maintained relatively rapid growth thanks to tax cuts and increased federal expenditure, the economies of Europe, China and Japan have all contracted.

Just as IMF Chief Christine Lagarde recently warned, the headwinds of trade friction, notably between China and the US, "could have slowed momentum even more than we had expected." She also said that if Trump follows through on this threat to impose steep tariffs on auto imports, it would result in retaliation from trading partners on US exports and could cut a large chunk out of the world economy.

An escalation in trade disputes worldwide will inevitably bring more pressure on both Chinese and American companies. According to a statement by the WTO on November 22, countries belonging to the G20 group of the world's biggest economies applied 40 new trade restrictive measures between mid-May and mid-October, covering around $481 billion of trade. Trimming its outlook for the global economy, the OECD calculated that a full-blown trade war and the resulting economic uncertainty could knock as much as 0.8 percent off global gross domestic product by 2021.

In this context, the efforts made by China and the US in Argentina to ease trade tensions are valuable to save the global economy. How to take the next step is of course full of challenges. Reaching an agreement on a number of sensitive issues within the next three months will be a big test for both countries.

The Trump government should not overestimate its bargaining chips. It should review the fundamental role healthy and balanced globalization can play in helping the US economy maintain sustainable growth. Trump recently asked General Motors to stop making cars in China and open a new plant in Ohio. As General Motors is highly dependent on the Chinese market, such requirements appear to run counter to common sense and reason.

Besides, the Trump government threatened to impose export controls on new technologies like robotics, hoping to weaken China's position in the global supply chain and win an upper hand in technological competition with China. Such an approach has been opposed by sane minds in Silicon Valley who argue that it will only benefit companies in Europe and Japan.

China needs to accelerate the implementation of the new round of reform and opening-up policy in the following three months. The Chinese government in the past few months rolled out more policies to support private companies, which is necessary, but more importantly, it should hasten steps to establish a more mature market economy.

If China can reform its own development model based on its own plan under the pressure of a trade spat, it will be the biggest winner and the whole world will also benefit from it.

By Zhao Minghao Source:Global Times

The author is a senior research fellow with The Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

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Trade cease-fire welcomed - Capital markets shoot up in response to tariff truce

• Trade war truce sends significant signal
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Related post:

U.S., China agree trade war ceasefire after Trump, Xi summit

https://youtu.be/Ar5fVQYDTak https://youtu.be/NoGlD73kh28 BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - China and the United States agreed to a ceasef...

U.S., China agree trade war ceasefire after Trump, Xi summit

https://youtu.be/Ar5fVQYDTak

https://youtu.be/NoGlD73kh28

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - China and the United States agreed to a ceasefire in their bitter trade war on Saturday after high-stakes talks in Argentina between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, including no escalated tariffs on Jan. 1.

Trump will leave tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports at 10 percent at the beginning of the new year, agreeing to not raise them to 25 percent "at this time", the White House said in a statement.

"China will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries," it said.

"China has agreed to start purchasing agricultural product from our farmers immediately."

The two leaders also agreed to immediately start talks on structural changes with respect to forced technology transfers, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture, the White House said.

Both countries agreed they will try to have this "transaction" completed within the next 90 days, but if this does not happen then the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent, it added.

The Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said the negotiations were conducted in a "friendly and candid atmosphere".

"The two presidents agreed that the two sides can and must get bilateral relations right," Wang told reporters, adding they agreed to further exchanges at appropriate times.

"Discussion on economic and trade issues was very positive and constructive. The two heads of state reached consensus to halt the mutual increase of new tariffs," Wang said.

"China is willing to increase imports in accordance with the needs of its domestic market and the people's needs, including marketable products from the United States, to gradually ease the imbalance in two-way trade."

"The two sides agreed to mutually open their markets, and as China advances a new round of reforms, the United States' legitimate concerns can be progressively resolved."

The two sides would "step up negotiations" towards full elimination of all additional tariffs, Wang said.

The announcements came after Trump and Xi sat down with their aides for a working dinner at the end of a two-day gathering of world leaders in Buenos Aires, their dispute having unnerved global financial markets and weighed on the world economy.

After the 2-1/2 hour meeting, White House chief economist Larry Kudlow told reporters the talks went "very well," but offered no specifics as he boarded Air Force One headed home to Washington with Trump.

China's goal was to persuade Trump to abandon plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent in January, from 10 percent at present. Trump had threatened to do that, and possibly add tariffs on $267 billion of imports, if there was no progress in the talks.

With the United States and China clashing over commerce, financial markets will take their lead from the results of the talks, widely seen as the most important meeting of U.S. and Chinese leaders in years.

The encounter came shortly after the Group of 20 industrialized nations backed an overhaul of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which regulates international trade disputes, marking a victory for Trump, a sharp critic of the organisation. Trump told Xi at the start of their meeting he hoped they would achieve "something great" on trade for both countries. He struck a positive note as he sat across from Xi, despite the U.S. president's earlier threats to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports as early as the next year.

He suggested that the "incredible relationship" he and Xi had established would be "the very primary reason" they could make progress on trade.

Xi told Trump that only through cooperation could the United States and China serve the interest of peace and prosperity. Washington and Beijing have also increasingly been at odds over security in the Asia-Pacific region.

At the same time, Trump again raised with Xi his concern about the synthetic opioid fentanyl being sent from China to the United States, urging the Chinese leader to place it in a "restricted category" of drugs that would criminalize it.

The White House said Xi, "in a wonderful humanitarian gesture", had agreed to designate fentanyl a controlled substance.

Xi also said that he was open to approving the previously unapproved Qualcomm-NXP deal should it again be presented to him, the White House added.

"This was an amazing and productive meeting with unlimited possibilities for both the United States and China. It is my great honour to be working with President Xi," Trump said in the statement.

WTO REFORMS

Earlier on Saturday, the leaders of the world's top economies called for WTO reform in their final summit statement.

Officials expressed relief that agreement on the communique was reached after negotiators worked through the night to overcome differences over language on climate change.

The final text recognised trade as an important engine of global growth but made only a passing reference to "the current trade issues" after the U.S. delegation won a battle to keep any mention of protectionism out of the statement.

Trump has long railed against China's trade surplus with the United States, and Washington accuses Beijing of not playing fairly on trade. China calls the United States protectionist and has resisted what it views as attempts to intimidate it.

The two countries are also at odds over China's extensive claims in the South China Sea and U.S. warship movements through the highly sensitive Taiwan Strait.

In addition to tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the United States this year. Numerous countries have filed litigation at the WTO to contest the levies.

The United States is unhappy with what it says is the WTO's failure to hold China to account for not opening up its economy as envisioned when China joined the body in 2001. The European Union is also pushing for sweeping changes to how the WTO operates.

G20 delegates said negotiations on the summit statement proceeded more smoothly than at a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders two weeks ago, where disagreement on protectionism and unfair trading practices prevented a consensus.

European officials said a reference to refugees and migration - a sensitive issue for Trump's administration - was excised to ensure consensus.

On climate change, the United States once again marked its differences with the rest of the G20 by reiterating in the statement its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and its commitment to using all kinds of energy sources.

The other members of the group reaffirmed their commitment to implement the Paris deal and tackle climate change.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said high levels of debt accumulated by emerging market nations was a pressing concern.

U.S. officials said a call by G20 leaders for the IMF and World Bank to improve monitoring debt levels was aimed at ensuring that developing economies did not become to heavily indebted to China in return for infrastructure projects.

U.S. officials have warned about China's increasing influence across swaths of the developing world, including Latin America. G20 summit host Argentina is expected to sign a series of deals with China on Sunday during a one-day state visit by Xi.

Apart from trade and climate change, Russia's seizure of Ukrainian vessels drew condemnation from other G20 members, while the presence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the summit raised an awkward dilemma for leaders.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler arrived amid controversy over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, though Saudi officials have said the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder.

The leader of the OPEC heavyweight had a series of bilateral meetings at the summit, including a closely watched encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Michael Martina, Matt Spetalnick, Maximilian Heath, Scott Squires, Cassandra Garrison, Daniel Flynn and Kylie Maclellan in Buenos Aires; Dave Shepardson and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and John Ruwitch in Shanghai; writing by Matt Spetalnick and Daniel Flynn; editing by Ross Colvin, Alistair Bell, Jonathan Oatis and Will Dunham)

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Peter Navarro, the controversial White House trade policy adviser and a famous China hawk, will not be on the guest list when US President Donald Trump meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires on December 1, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.


Sino-US agreement an important step forward
In talks on Saturday at Buenos Aires in Argentina, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump reached an important consensus on stabilizing trade relations between China and the US. The two countries will step up negotiations toward elimination of all additional tariffs and address issues of mutual concern.

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Trump’s tariff policy has failed: analysts

After China slammed US President Donald Trump's accusation that China is meddling in the US midterm elections, analysts noted that Trump's behavior shows he has been shamed as his policy toward China didn't bring what he wants but has hurt his supporters.

If Trump discovers he is losing support due to China's trade retaliation, which has hurt the interests of his supporters, then he should blame himself and people who convinced him to impose additional tariffs against China, because it was his administration that started the frictions and led to China's retaliation, Chinese experts said on Thursday.

"We do not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China," Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the UN Security Council at once after Trump made his accusation.

Trump accused China during his remarks at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, saying, "Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 elections in November against my administration," CNN reported.

Trump offered scant details or evidence, which came during a session meant to focus on nonproliferation issues. He suggested the meddling attempts came as retribution for the budding trade war he has waged with Beijing, CNN's report said.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded to Trump's remarks on Thursday. "China has always stood by the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, and this is a Chinese diplomatic tradition, and the international community knows this," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a routine press conference.

"The international community is also clear on which country is most interested in interfering with others' internal affairs," Geng noted. He urged the US to stop making groundless accusations and slandering China, and refrain from making wrong statements and actions that damage bilateral ties and the fundamental interests of the two peoples.

'Not what he wants'

"They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade," Trump said at the UN Security Council. "We are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming elections."

However, Chinese analysts disagree with Trump's rhetoric.

"This shows that Trump has been ashamed into anger due to his unsuccessful policy on China," said Ni Feng, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of American Studies.

"After a series of tariffs and provocations on the Taiwan question, and sanctions on the Chinese military department and personnel, China has continued to retaliate without any compromise and even refuses to negotiate with the US under the current circumstances. So this situation is not what he wants, which is why he is so angry and tries to make new accusations," Ni noted.

The US midterm elections are approaching, and the Republicans are facing a serious challenge and might lose the House after the elections. So Trump is trying to "pass the buck," said Diao Daming, an American studies expert and associate professor at Renmin University of China.

"Blaming China is a good option for him, and some radical Trump supporters will believe him regardless of the truth," Diao noted.

Due to the interdependency between China and the US, China's retaliation will definitely hurt US people's interests, including those of Trump supporters. But don't forget it was Trump who irrationally began the trade frictions with China, and China is forced to retaliate, Diao said.

"If the US people want to blame someone, they should blame their president. If Trump wants to blame someone for losing support or even the elections, he should blame himself and his advisers who urged him to start the trade row, rather than pass the buck to China," he noted.

A Chinese State-run English language newspaper inserted a four-page supplement in the Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register, an Iowa-based newspaper, to highlight the negative effects of the trade frictions Trump launched.

"China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, and making them appear like news," Trump tweeted on Thursday.

"According to US laws, foreign media can cooperate with US media," and many other foreign media companies do the same thing. So, accusing this normal act as evidence of meddling in the elections is far-fetched and groundless, Geng said.

However, the US government, the Congress and the media have done a lot to interfere in China's internal affairs on Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet, Diao noted. "This is real interference in others' internal affairs." - Global Times By Yang Sheng


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We also hope that the Chinese public gets to know the causes and effects of the event and the steadiness of the Chinese government's policies. No matter how long China-US trade conflicts last, China is doing what it should. China is honest and principled and a major trade power with intensive strengths. No one can take us down.

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China must open up despite external risks

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Lobbying Washington more challenging for Moon

History has proved that Pyongyang-Washington ties have a decisive effect on inter-Korean relations. In this sense, in the final analysis, Seoul needs to focus on lobbying Washington.




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