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China trade pause deadline of Aug 12 and its renewal. US negotiators Bessent and Greer in Stockholm report back to DJT for a final decision on whether to extend the trade truce with China by 3 months. China wants to remove the duty related to fentanyl entering the US from origins of the chemicals in China of 20% imposed by DJT, yet trade negotiators say no significant improvements on cracking down on the chemicals used to make fentanyl are seen. Currently duties are at 50-55% and would go up to 80% without a truce. The UK, Japan and European Union, Indonesia, Vietnam have come up with trade agreements with the US by July 28, 2025.

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China's campaign against corruption and the popular programs that the Chinese government of Jinping encourages on television. This includes the 52 part series on television called "In the Name of the People." The programs show how the Communist party's upright officials stand up against the corrupt ones. The idea is to build up the reputation of the Communist Party, as it sagged under the previous administrations during the period of rapid growth when such behaviour was tolerated to in some ways.

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How U.S. -Chinese relations today parallel relations between the U.S. and Japan in the late eighties and early nineties. The dnagers of extrapolating from the enormous growth in China today and Japan then, into the future decades. The prospect say anlaysts that the model of development in Japan then, and China today, with an emphasis of state driven direction, works for several decades and then starts sputtering. At some point it becomes a model that cannot be sustained. Some analysts like Arthur Kroeber, of Dragonomics, an economic forecasting firm based in Beijing, see it as a model that is right for that stage of developmment in a country's progress from an agricultural to an industrial economy. But there are critical differences with Japan, for one China has not completed its transition to urbanization as it has large parts of the country that are rural. And industrialization has increased the level of inequality in China. See the articles citing Gini coeficcients for China which show significant deterioration. The other difference is that Japan still had a pioneering secotr of companies in the export sector from Toyota to Panasonic, whereas China's companies in most secotrs are state run or heavily financed by state run banks. Japan has one other striking difference in that it has a democratic form of government and a thriving and independent media, which makes Japan's transition to a post industrial economy with an increase in private initiative less difficult....

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New information from the recordings of the World Health Organization as reported by Associated Press, show that during the week of January 6 WHO's lead experts were having difficulty getting information about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and the WHO technical lead for coronavirus says she was going on very minimal information. The WHO's top official in China, Gauden Galea, says in one of the recordings that they were in the situation where information was given to WHo officials in China only 15 minutes prior to it going on China's state television CCTV. In early January Michael Ryan, the WHO's chief of emergencies, says he feared a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2002, which was initially covered up by Chinese officials, according to the AP report shown in the Guardian. Ryan says he found himself in the same situation as in 2002 SARS, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on, and adds that WHO barely got out of the SARS with its reputation intact given the transparency issues, in the AP report shown in the Guardian. By June 1 about 6.3 million confirmed cases are reported of coronavirus in the world and 375,000 deaths, and huge losses to economies and people. China's authorites did not lockdown Wuhan till January 23, by which time this report in the Guardian says at least 5 million residents had left. China denied entry requested by the U.S.on January 6 for a team of experts into Wuhan, The team was not allowed into Wuhan for a crucial period of 6 weeks during which the virus had time to spread in the western world. This is taken up in Mr. Trump's letter to the WHO, and the work of Gro Harlem Brundtland is clearly stated in the conclusion of that letter. Brundtland was head of the WHO at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2003, and acted decisively with early warnings to prevent its spread.  Because of the extremely contagious nature of the coronavirus the failure of early warning systems resulted in enormous damage to lives and economic losses worldwide.  ...

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Jeremy Carl is the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (including UN) in Feb. 2026. He is a research fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His BA is from Yale where he was president of the student union, and his Masters is from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  From 2004-2005 he was a visiting fellow at the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India.This article says he has been critical of Jewish attitudes yet he comes from a Jewish family and is now a member of the Presbyterian church. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the first term of DJT. His recent book is on the theme of how the culture and attitude of America was culture an attitude of vast majority of the population from 1600 till 1965 for about 400 years. The Immigration laws of 1965 under JFK/Johnson, he says were not intended to change this, yet a change and relaxation of tight immigration policy has led to the situation similar to what Eisenhower faced in 1954 that led to Operation Wetback- as Mexican immigration surged in the war years by the early 1950's. For 150 years before 1965 the US only opened up for Europeans immigrating to the US. The changes since 1965 coincided with deindustrializationn of the US and the failure of the governing class to do anything about the steady shipping out the nation's manufacturing sector to China. Which is why there is so much anxiety about America's position in the world and a sense of a culture that is being lost- of Robert Frost's poetry set in New Hampshire, of Shakespeare's plays and morals for Western civilization, of the values of Emerson and Thoreau that guided Gandhiji and other Asian leaders. ...

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XI Jinping tells China's National People's Congress that "western nations- including the US- have implemented all round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to development." Addressing the private sector Chamber of Commerce representatives which create significant number of jobs in China he said the Communist Party "has always regarded private enterprises and private entrepreneurs as our own people, and will always support them whenever they run into difficulties." Job creation in China is a challenge with high youth unemployment estimated at about 20%. The pandemic worsened the situation for state finances and for unemployment for migrants, the construction slowdown has added to this. The burden of trillions of dollars of local government debt increased during the pandemic with the central government lacking the resources to help, creating problems in the local economies.  This WSJ report says Xi's speech seeks to present his government's performance in the light of these challenges and future challenges as growth slows in China. The trading relationship with US-EU added to employment and income problems for China's economy and people, yet it had one weakness an over concentration in manufacturing in one country that European and US business placed in one country. The building of a  new supply chain that creates manufacturing in other countries to reduce this concentration, and the limits placed on access to western technologies by China to protect US-EU in competition, places new development challenges for China, which Xi alludes to. In the past China was able to use huge stimulus to tackle its debt by creating more growth that supported this debt creation. The pandemic may finally have reversed this as trillions of dollars of debt have built up, and construction of homes and infrastructure has reached a saturation point. This is the kind of situation that Japan entered in the 1990's after three decades of torrid growth and development rates. History is being repeated as China like Japan is entering a new phase of an aging society. In this sense the challenges China is facing are very different from that of Russia. Creating jobs is a perennial problem in India and China with their large populations and rising aspirations of people after centuries of underdevelopment, something that Europe including Russia does not face in anywhere to a similar degree. in this sense there is more in common between the EU and Russia even when they are in a war, than Russia and China, and China has more in common with India. The struggle in Europe as Cambridge historian Brendan Simms has pointed out in his History of Europe, is more about the balance of power which is the story of European history since the 1450's where no one country has been allowed to act with impunity in invading its neighbors and other countries formed a concerted group to prevent this. Be it France, Austria, Britain or Russia that acted seemingly with impunity. China has little to do with it or Europe's history. President Biden is right to say that the US only competes with China in the economic and business fields, and seeks to find common ground on climate change and food insecurity. The US has supported China throughout the twentieth century since the time of Woodrow Wilson in 1913, around the period when Tsinghua University was established with US help. The US helped China during the Japanese invasion and the Cold War period ended with renewed relations.  ...

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The New York Times reports that comments from Obama administration officials describe an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the USA over the last two years. David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy program at George Washington University, says the administration had hoped to work with China on major challenges like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and a new global economic order. China, he says, has failed to step up and play that role. He describes the Chinese as responding as an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested truculent, hyper-nationalist, and powerful country. Jeffrey Baker, a key China policy adviser in the White House, says China's responses reflected a sense in Beijing that China was a rising power and the USA a declining power, especially after the strong rebound of the Chinese economy after the 2008 crisis. The administration is determined to counteract that impression. Other factors complicate things. China is facing a transition to a new leadership in the next year. There are differences within the Chinese Communist party leadership ranks about the direction China should take. Trade and currency issues have come to the point where American public opinion is shifting greatly, with educated professionals changing their views on trade and currency matters. See the recent WSJ/NBC September 2010 poll on world trade, reported by Murray and Belkin in WSJ, Oct 2, 2010. The Obama administration cannot ignore the deep concerns of the American people on these issues. The House overwhelmingly voted in September to threaten China with tariffs on its exports if the Chinese currency, the renminbi, is not allowed to appreciate significantly enough (experts estimate that it is overvalued by 20%). It is not clear whether the Administration's rhetoric on this issue is to assuage public opinion in a business as usual manner, or expected to achieve substantative results to rebalance world trade. The G-20 summit in S. Korea leaves this change for well into the future- China with current account surplus of 5.8% of GDP in 2009 is expected to lower this to 4% by 2015. With the high jobless rate in the US and the large and rising current account deficit, the United States may have reached a juncture where this cannot be put off well into the future years. Other issues, the different foreign policy objectives, and differing perceptions of China and the US of each other, the relationship with US allies in the region, may create additional tensions. These tensions may be navigated by governments of both countries, but the shift in American public opinion on trade, currency and jobs issues will require tangible and real change. As trade tensions will only increase in the next two years with the lack of fiscal stimulus on the jobs front, and no significant change in jobs expected from the Fed's purchase af additional Treasury debt, and a sense that the mutual benefit in the trade relationship with China has been lost to America's serious detriment. China's position may be perceived as stronger than it really is from the faster rebound from the 2008 crisis, and may in reality not be as Jeffrey Baker sees it. As David Barboza has reported in the New York Times, and experts have pointed out, the huge amount of lending encouraged by the government has accentuated weaknesses in the Chinese economy. A significant amount has gone into real estate speculation and will only increase the bad loans on the books of China's banks. This happens at the very time that growth is expected to slow down and make it harder to absorb the bad loans, as was done in the past. ...

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Action that needed to come ten years back is finally taken. The new US president DJT says- "I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular fentanyl, being sent into the United States – but to no avail. Representatives of China told me they would enforce their maximum penalty, including the death sentence, for any drug dealers caught doing this, but unfortunately, they never followed through. As a result, drugs are pouring into our country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before. Until they stop, we will charge China an additional 10% tariff, on top of any existing tariffs, on all of their products entering the United States.”  "On 20 January, as one of my first executive orders, I will sign all necessary documents to impose a 25% tariff on all products coming into the United States from Mexico and Canada, along with addressing its ridiculous open borders. This tariff will remain in place until drugs, particularly fentanyl, and illegal immigrants stop invading our country.” ...

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The U.S. China trade and tech rivalry continues with the arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on U.S. request for extradition. The reason appears to be a violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran. President Xi has taken steps in the past to protect Huawei, as a top priority, scuttling Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV. The merger with the Dutch Company would have threatened Huawei in its race to dominate 5G networks.

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"Made in China 2025" is a plan by China to build competitive companies in new technology industries such as advanced microchips, driverless cars, robotics. This is one area in which there is a huge difference in trade matters more than the tariffs issue, because the U.S. sees this as an effort to dominate these industries with state subsidized loans at low interest rates. The Trump administration has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on imports from China in these industries to protect U.S. companies. The U.S. insists there should be a level playing field for U.S. companies.

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WIth China reluctant to make concessions on agricultural imports at a recent Shanghai meeting of Mr. Lighthizer with Chinese trade representatives, the trade dispute with China has escalated. Mr. Lighthizer had little to show Mr. Trump at a meeting in the WHite House. After a 2 hour meeting Mr. Trump told his advisers that his patience was wearing thin. His response on what the U.S. should do- "tariffs." A tweet was prepared saying U.S. would place import duties of 10% on imports of additional $300 billion in Chinese goods. China responded by lowering its currency value to 7 to the dollar to offset the import duties. China also said it was suspending all agricultural imports of U.S. farm products. The U.S. designating China as a currency manipulator.  The situation today is that there is a level of mistrust between president Xi and his advisers and Mr. Trump and his team. The situation has taken a new turn with China saying the U.S. is supporting protests in Hong Kong. President Trump has stated China is waiting it out to deal with a new administration in Washington. Both sides do not see any solutions till after the U.S. elections in 2020. For China there is also the upcoming 70th anniversary of the People's Republic. ...

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China want its company COSCO to have an equal share in ownership of the 40 ports including ones in Panama that Hutchison of Hong Kong is selling for $23 billion to Black Rock and MSC. 

In 2014 China blocked a deal where Maersk would merge with a French shipping company and MSC to form a larger company. Much of China's export surge and its manufacturing capacity largely for exports rests on shipping and logistics and a large role is played by Denmark's Maersk and by COSCO. This has led to the US and Europe losing with its manufacturing base its role in world shipping, and as a result also in shipbuilding. All three are linked. India as it builds its manufacturing base is also building up its logistics and shipping terminals. DJT has emphasized the importance of the ports and it is seen as an affront that the country that built the Panama Canal has ceded its ports there.

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China has over the last 10 years expanded its investments and trade with Latin America to match that with its earlier investment in Africa. China's trade and investment structures in Latin America are designed differently to correct for earlier mistakes in Africa where investments turned into a debt trap for African nations. This time China invested slowly in Latin America and created better terms for loan repayment. A look at the public debt to China as percentage of GDP shows for Brazil $30 billion is less than 1% of GDP of $2.174 trillion (World Bank). After the outcry on public debt to China of Pakistan and some African nations China has a different strategy and Brazil has a different strategy slowing borrowing and focusing loans on infrastructure projects with good returns on investment. Brazil total debt to China since 2005 is $30 billion with loan borrowings slowing down (China's strategy) in the last decade, and carefully arranged by Brazil. Contrast this with $26 billion owed by Pakistan to China on GDP of Pakistan of 338 billion in 2023- 7.7 percentage points. Sri Lanka owes $24 billion to China on $84 billion GDP of Sri Lanka- 28 percentage points.   ...

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As China shifts away from construction to support the economy no government support is given to real estate company Evergrande to reorganize it operations. Evergrande has $300 billion in debt and its sprawling operations all over China will now be dismantled. The decision is made in an Hong Kong courtroom on the 12th floor of the Hong Kong Court Building as reported by Alexandra Stevenson of the NYT. China is now moving away from the economic support of internet companies such as Tencent and Alibaba and construction firms such as Evergrande. More investment is going into renewable energy and companies that are leading in technologies such as BYD in electric cars worldwide. Investment is also being made in funding improvement in standards of living in the rural interior of the country that was neglected during the boom years and in tackling climate change. This is a very different China as president Jinping looks for other ways for economic development that fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN and the goals of building a better China for all its people in less developed rural areas and in urban areas.  ...

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Chris Buckley in the NYT today makes no mention of the Bo Xilai episode in 2012 and what this meant for Xi's future policy actions. Cheng Li calls it the most significant happening since the Lin Biao incident in 1971 and Tianmen in 1989. Brookings Institution offers this discussion of the Bo Xilai episode with Cheng Li, China expert on its economic and political elites. Cheng Li rejected the idea that China at the time in 2012 reflected "resilient authoritarianism," instead anticipating problems such as Bo Xilai emerging as a demagogue putting China in an ultranationalist and uncertain direction. This happened during the transition to a new team of leaders led by Xi Jinping in 2012. Xi could see the corruption in the CCP and the hypergrowth in China causing problems of irreparable environmental damage (now climate change), regional inequality, and offering an opening for demagogues to step into this mix of problems. Xi  acted devising policy shifts away from Hu Jintao and Wen Biao of the Bush-Paulsen era and pushing away from focus on rapid growth, shifting to counter inequality, unstable dependence on construction and housing, and excessive debt of that period. Little mention is given to this in NYT Chris Buckely's version of US-China relations in today's NYT (November 13, 2023). ...

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Could S. Jaishankar borker a peace in the Ukraine Russia war. Mr. Macron thinks India's Jaishankar and Modi could help set up a peace agreement. Germany's chancellor Scholz visited Beijing and called for an end to the war with president Xi of China. Jaishankar India's most experienced diplomat with long periods as a diplomat in China, is expected to visit Russia for setting up the groundwork for a peace settlement even though its outlines are not evident at this time.

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The split of the global internet into three with the emergence of a closely monitored internet in China, and Google developing the Dragonfly version to enter China in cooperation with the government. The European Union will have its own version that rivals the U.S. with its own regulations and rules. Each has its large home base. A fourth base is in South Asia where a home grown internet is still to develop. The split will be based on home versions such as Baidu in China and Google, Bing, Safari in the U.S. and the EU version with different rules for privacy and protection. Openness, limits, regulation, government rules and control in home countries, will characterize the patterns in each. This Editorial Board article in NYT says the U.S. version may not end up being the best.

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Former Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi (2012 -2022) and its senior official makes these comments at the Munich Security Conference on US shooting down Chinese spy balloons. Yi says it was "absurd and hysterical." He says China is going to put out a paper on Ukraine that would underline the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty. For China its crucial relations with Germany, trade with Europe are critical for its economy and growth. Germany's coalition government itself is divided on investment by China in the port of Hamburg, with the Greens not supporting that decision by chancellor Scholz. The issue for Biden is not simply the balloons. As The Guardian points out the US is pushing for China to withdraw or at least make conditional its support of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine that is a clear violation of the UN Charter that China says it supports. 

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US- China trade relations 2025 and XI's rare earth minerals export restrictions response to US tariffs. DJT resonse was 100% tariff on China from 57%. After meeting Xi in Busan, South Korea, after the APEC meetings, US settled on 10% reduction in tariffs from the 57% tariffs on Chinese products down now to 47%. The 100% tariff was withdrawn by DJT and China's Xi settled on withdrawing restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals. The fentanyl tariffs are still in place and the WSJ editorial says not much is likely to happen on fentanyl action by China to stop exports of fentanyl that reach the US through Mexico. China says it will take in soyabeans exports. US signs agreement with Australia to develop alternative supplies of rare earth minerals. The WSJ says for tariffs action to work US should not tariff allies. Yet broad tariffs action was necessary as partners Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the EU, Canada and Mexico were also nations that created an unfair trade situation for the US. The US took action on all nations that take unfair advantage of free trade concepts to benefit them which also add to the credibility of tariffs as effort to restore fairness in world trade.  ...

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Abrams and De Acosta, Bellman of the WSJ look at growth and modernization in India in comparison with China and other countries. GDP per capita would take 10 years to reach the stage at which spending power of the people equals that in China today. At one point in 1980 China and South Korea were closer in GDP per capita than India. It is only now that India is accelerating towards the scale and depth of modernization done in China.  India's growth rate of over 7% is likely to surge after some of the problems in bad loans in the banking sector are cleared up. A wave of technological advances would help accelerate growth. Ease of doing business and foreign investment are on upward trend, for absorbing new technology from advanced countries. A shift to very low prices for data use with rapid development of 4G services is one of the recent achievements. Manufacturing growth remains a challenge to be tackled to create the jobs needed.  Revamping tax structures such as GST and shifting the economy towards use of electronic cash has increased revenues needed to invest in infrastructure, health and education.  As much of the potential for future growth comes from people at the lower income levels, improving social indicators such as sanitation, cleanliness, farmer incomes, universal bank accounts, universal access to health care, are steps that lay the foundation for the future. ...

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Toutiao and the growing mobile segment for news aggregated from thousands of sources for tech, politics, and other local news. Toutiao and Tencent QQ are taking advantage of the growing need for news in China. Toutiao's algorithm targets new internet users in rural areas and small towns who are looking for news and do not need the use of global news sites as is done by Google and Apple. The deep learning of computers is used to study user habits such as learning about the main soccer teams, watching funny videos,as habits of users. Beijing Bytedance Technology has come up with the new site. The highest growth rate is now for news on mobile, growth is 73% year over year far surpassing travel and mobile video, according to QuestMobile.

China restricts use of Google and Facebook News and other sites and favors local content and news sites to give international news, and news about China.

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China announced that it would make its exchange rate flexible, but also emphasized that it would do so gradually. What this means is that China will have a managed floating exchange rate. China followed a managed floating policy between mid 2005 and mid 2008, with a 21% upward valuation during that period for the yuan. During the 2008 crisis upto now the rate was pegged. The yuan was pegged at 6.83 yuan to the dollar. China is now rebalancing its economy so that it is not overly dependent on exports. The idea is to let domestic wages and domestic consumption pick up the slack in the markets of Europe and the USA. Europe is taking up austerity measures, and the mood in the US is shifting towards concern about growing budget and trade deficits. See the groups for "China wages" and "China workers."

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President Trump reiterated his threat to place tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods in addition to earlier tariffs on $250 billion in goods.  The problem China faces is that it China imports less, far less than the U.S. does. China has only $10 billion in U.S. goods to place tariffs on. This is after placing tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. goods, mostly agricultural products such as soyabeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on the $250 billion of Chinese goods. China could place a ban on imports from Boeing or restrict the access for U.S. companies to the Chinese market. U.S. companies have invested billions of dollars in the China and employ about 2 million Chinese in well paying jobs. Concerns about unemployment would be uppermost to prevent these jobs being affected. Other concern for China is the loss of foreign investment as relations deteriorate. Already supply chains in some products such as clothing and consumer products is shifting other countries in Asia. In automobiles the regional hubs are expected to shift with India as a potential hub for Asia, and Mexico preserving its place as a North American hub following renegotiation of NAFTA. In media the dispute is leading to a shift from Chinese consumers buying Adidas instead of Nike and Huawei smartphones instead of Apple.  For an already slowing economy this hurts China more than the U.S. which is why the U.S. is pushing China to settle with an agreement that the U.S. can trust to bring down China's trade surplus. For the U.S. as most of the loss in exports is in agricultural products the solution has been to provide government aid to farmers, and for Mr. Trump to use the issue to point out that he is fighting for U.S. interests and for fairness. This is why the trade dispute poses more problems for China. Because the surplus is so wildly skewed in China's favor after the inaction of many U.S. presidents just as it was for Japan in the eighties, the situation appears to be headed towards a definite reversal of the lopsided trade surplus enjoyed by China. In the process the U.S. plans to build up the competitive edge it has lost to some degree.  ...

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The title says it all from BBC China Correspondent Laura Bicker. China is listening even as it is presenting itself as a nation that is putting up with an unfair tariffs war started by DJT. It has delayed tariffs till Feb 10 says this report and put tariffs on items which Europe needs from the US such as LNG and coal which China can get from Australia, saying that it wants to come to an agreement. My Fellow Americans, Canada, Mexico and China are putting themselves as aggrieved parties when there are two issues here one about fentanyl flows where none of the three nations have taken the needed action to stop all flows and control borders. The reader will find that much of the media titles blame the US for starting a tariffs war are misleading such as one in The Guardian-"In this era of Trump shakedowns everything has a price."  Or even in a Business friendly WSJ site- "The World has Changed since Trump's First Trade War. Other Countries are Ready to Fight Back." Or in Times of London sensational "World Watches as Trade War looms between China and the US," when US demand for effective action on borders and fentanyl flows from Canada, Mexico and China has little to do with trade. In fact it is incomprehensible that these three nations as neighbors and trade partners of the US have waited this long to act on fentanyl flows and controlling their border with the US.   ...