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The Biden Xi meeting was a momentous event, of great importance and significance setting the tone for next 3 decades of US- China relations. Here is how China's Xinhua agency covered it. Xi's speech emphasized the world and the US and China's need to work on climate change, inclusiveness for benefits to reach all parts of the people. Biden's efforts to support the labor movement are part of the US efforts in this direction, Xi's to bring the benefits to the regions of China and rural parts left behind in three decades of development. Openness and innovation Xi emphasized, on which the US is working to say openness but as China does to support its own solar and EV industries, and for innovation to protect its own technologies. In this way the US is saying we will work with you but without the illusions of the past in which free market thinking was an hindrance and support its own new technologies and industries as China is doing, and protecting its technologies from being transferred. ...

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China follows Japan in the proportion of its elderly population at a similar juncture in its development. A paper from Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry pointed out that the proportion of child and elderly populations in China as of 2020 was similar to Japan's in 1990. China reached that inflection point faster with fertility rate falling from 2.74 to 1.28 in a 4 decade period, while Japan's fell from 1.75 to 1.29. That paper also shows India's proportion of child and elderly population in 2020 was similar to China's in 1980 when its economic boom took off. The overconcentration of supply chain in China is now being addressed by business in US and Europe after the pandemic showed its weakness. Prime minister Modi says this overconcentration has hurt even and balanced development worldwide.

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Lost decade term has generally referred to a lost decade from austerity policies in UK or the EU, or after the 2009 financial crisis from bad banking practices. Here the term is being used in error as investments in China have not benefitted all classes equally in China leaving the hinterland and rural areas behind, and worse has decimated America's and Europe's industrial manufacturing base destroying in its course the financial livelihoods of communities everywhere in the western world. Biden in US and Xi in China are well aware of this and their policies are intended to change the direction of the US and China towards reducing disparities in income and ensuring fairness, new goals after the pandemic. The American people and the US economy has little to gain from increased investment in China when the homeland can easily absorb investment of trillions of dollars after decades of missteps, mistaken wars and adventures overseas, neglect of infrastructure needing to be rebuilt. The damage of the environment in China and in North America and the world alone shows that the hyper growth in China was a bad idea for the American and Chinese people and the people of Europe and of the world. ...

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The new data security law that went into effect Sept 1, 2021, limits the amount of sensitive information China will share with foreign companies, and investors. All data related activities are subject to government oversight says this report in WSJ, including collection, storage, use and transmission. Companies in China now are reluctant to share information.  Because the law is ambiguous about what is sensitive information this makes companies more reluctant. The result is a China that is more opaque than before. It is driven by antagonism in the US over the effect on American workers of manufacturing and supply chains shifted to China. The response of the Chinese government is to turn the country inward, looking to self sufficiency, data security, and an environment that looks at foreigners with suspicion, says this report in WSJ. The pandemic has increased this view of foreigners in China, after China's experience with a deteriorating trade relationship with the US. Xi Jinping has not left the country since the pandemic started in January 2020. China has also seen an alarming drop in passengers going overseas or coming into China from 50 million in the first 8 months of 2019, to 1 million in the first 8 months of 2021, a drop of 49 million passengers, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration. Government directives are to minimize foreign travel as a result of the pandemic. People in the US see the operations in China of companies such as Apple and now Tesla as a sign of how well the system of international cooperation is functioning without realizing that these companies never had the understanding of the history and culture of the country after two centuries of struggle against colonialism. When the situation takes a different turn as it has after Mr. Trump raised the issue of American workers and loss of manufacturing, and after the pandemic created unexpected distrust, there is very little these companies have to offer to keep the relationship between two of the world's population blocs, between North America and the closely related population of South America, with the people of China, a billion people on each side. This shows that the relationship cannot be left only to the business and private sector driven by profit and business interests, that all sections of the population in China and in the US need to be involved for a stable relationship with ongoing human and cultural contacts at all levels. ...

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US actions to conduct investigations on 18 countries under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 - March 12 2026 after the Supreme Court asks DJT to use another law for tariffs. A key focus of the investigation is to show how industrial overcapacity is deliberately built through subsidies to push product into US markets and destroy American competition. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said March 11- "Our view is that key trading partners have developed production capacity that is really untethered from the market incentives of domestic and global demand." The US and DJT have repeatedly shown how this has been done over two decades to destroy the US industrial base. Another focus is on the used of forced or underpaid labor working in substandard working conditions and excessive hours. Greer says he will have the investigations results ready by mid-July when the presidents new tariff of 15% (after the SC ruling) expires. Other probes or investigations will also be conducted. All trade agreements signed with Germany, EU, Japan, UK, India, China, and other countries will remain in place. These countries have expressed a desire to keep them in place as that offers key benefit of removing uncertainty in making business decisions. ...

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China is building a port hub at Chancay that will have an initial 1.5 million TEU or twenty foot long containers capacity. It will be opened by president Xi in November. This megaport will cut the time it takes from South American coastline to Shanghai from 35 days to 25 days. Before this port China trade was conducted through Long Beach or Manzanillo in Mexico. China is now Brazil's largest trading partner and this port offers the possibility of connecting further from Brazil to Peru by land. This does pose new challenges such as crossing the Andes mountains and Brazilian jungle. The port will cost COSCO China's large shipping company $3.5 billion. China has invested in 100 foreign seaports with $30 billion over 2 decades. The port of Piraeus is operated by Chinese companies, and China has invested in a stake in the port of Hamburg, Germany which is the main gateway for Chinese exports into the EU. The US neglected Latin America and India during the three decades in which Reagan and Bush Sr, Bush Jr, engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wasting trillions of dollars, neglecting infrastructure investment in the US, and in Latin America and India. Over two decades the US has invested by comparison trillions of dollars in wars in Iraq starting with Reagan and Weinberger, Bush Sr. in the 1980's, and Bush junior in Afghanistan. Much of the oil dividend of the Middle East wasted by regimes in the region in wars. Not only the US infrastructure was starved of resources, Latin America, India and Indonesia did not receive the investment these countries needed for rapid development. Yet today Reagan and Bush are lauded for their contribution by Baker in WSJ today and by columnists in the NYT. The fall of the Berlin Wall was itself just an episode in the US relations with Russia as Russia and China are competing with the US. Germany itself of the Berlin Wall remains divided (with AfD popular in the East around Dresden), and Germany divided on pursuing policies that lead to worsening relations with Russia. Germany also maintains a strong trading relationship with China including a stake in Hamburg port given to China during the pandemic at a time when the supply chain over concentration in China was being questioned in US, EU, India. ...

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The full text of the letter is given here. In this letter the U.S. sets out some important facts about events that happened during the coronavirus crisis during the crucial 4 month period from December 2019 to March 2020. Every week lost in this time due to reasons of a lack of transparency, openness meant hundreds of thousands of people more infected and tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. There are questions of transparency, of openness and this raises questions about the manner in which the World Health Assembly operates with hundreds of small countries in Africa and Asia having votes equal to that of the U.S., India, Brazil, Mexico with votes taken of over 200 countries. The entire election process can now be seen as questionable, when over a billion people in one country alone such as India or hundreds of millions in Brazil and Mexico would have to bear the consequences of poor decisions made by small countries that can be swayed in one direction or another based on political bias and other considerations that have nothing to do with global health.  At the conclusion of the letter by the U.S. to the current WHO shaped by a controversial election in 2017 the following is stated about the standards set by Gro Harlem Brundtland and which helped the world prevent the SARS crisis which originated in China in 2003 from spreading to the large countries of the world India, Brazil, Mexico, and other such countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. European Union. "In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example." Even this does not come to grips with the flawed way in which the election of WHO head is done. It can no longer be relied on when there is the danger that lack of transparency can emerge in the WHO leadership itself because of a flawed process. It risks endangering the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions in countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, as well as in the relatively small countries of Africa and Latin America where even basic water supplies are at risk but which could tilt elections at the World Health Assembly. Consider that a cyclone just hit the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh on May 20 just as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading. That this region of 1.5 billion people had just 2 votes out of over 200 cast at the World Health Assembly in 2017 shocking. And even these votes cast based on old geopolitical considerations not how good the candidate is, and how good the country he is coming from is in terms of its record  on public health. The irony here is that private foundations in the advanced countries in the U.S. and Europe some of whom are major donors to WHO did not think that more experienced candidates in their own countries with a better record of public health such as in France or Germany are better qualified, in a flawed NGO support mentality left from the Clinton years. Basically the people in these large countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico were disenfranchised, when the austerity policies were consuming the European Union, and the U.S. had just elected a new administration itself groping for ways to reverse years of neglect of public services and infrastructure priorities. They would trust good leaders no matter where they come from, who have a record of transparency, leadership, and all the values we cherish together no matter where we come from. ...

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Violation of international law or tacit approval of drug states and suppression of the election results in Venezuela- position taken by Oxford's Dill and Germany's Steinmeier is itself controversial. Merz's is realistic. For those concerned about international law is it restricted to any particular period? Then the British policy in China supported by the other powers Japan, Russia, Germany and France to suppress the Boxer rebellion in 1901 and expand Treaty ports that forced opium on China in the period 1850 to the 1930's was not just a egregious violation, horrendous violation of basic human rights on a scale unimaginable in modern times. Much of the prosperity of the Netherlands and Britain, France was achieved through such policy in Asia. Yet Oxford's Dill and Steinmeier have chosen not to look at European history and the Empires of Europe in Asia and Africa for 300 years since 1700. By comparison Venezuelan action comes after the great patience of well meaning people, and the silence of elites in the US and Europe about massive migration encouraged by the regime in Venezuela of one third of its population about 9 million people to neighboring countries including the US, and suppression of free elections, complete mismanagement leading to 150% inflation destroying its economy.  It was not only these elites in the US and Europe that were responsible through their silence, but also the Bush and Obama wars in the Middle East which sapped the resources of the United States. Why is this happening when the Venezuelan people are the main benificiaries of the action taken by the US president to send in its military. All oil sales revenue will no longer go to a corrupt "drugs" state but be used to directly help the Venezuelan people achieve a better standard of living, bring down inflation  and invest in modernization, in these unusual circumstance a program run by Bessent at US Treasury. Those who dislike the unconventional but well meaning style of the US president and his occasional poor choice of words, find every opportunity for criticism even ignoring facts and common sense. Under Chavez and Maduro the Venezuelan economy was simply mismanaged to the point of being destroyed and an affluent country reduced to poverty and inflation so bad that one third or 9 milllion people left for neighboring countries. On this Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier have only this to say- it is somebody's else's problem. we will remain silent. Similarly on introducing nuclear weapons in the Middle East -where most nation states have intermittent wars and economic mismanagement for the last 50 years the artificial states from the Ottoman Empire of Syria and Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan every state impoverished by war and economic mismanagement - Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier in Germany also have only this to say- it is somebody else's problem not ours, we will remain silent. ...

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Where did the numbers in the US president DJT's charts come from wjen shown in the Rose Garden on Liberation Day April 2 2025? The number for example 68% for China comes from a ratio- deficit by country divided by total imports to US.  The numerator reflects the US concern about trade deficits. It is exports minus imports for China in this instance. In 2024 China's exports were $438 billion to the US. It's imports were $143 billion. The difference is the surplus or deficit China has with the US. China's surplus is $295 billion. China's surplus is also America's deficit with China when turned around and seen from the viewpoint of America. The denominator reflects the US concern about how much it is importing from each country- this is how much it is not making inside America and which it has to get from another country. The more that it imports from another country the less it makes at home. If labor in the US gets too costly and is not cooperative to make well designed reliable products more factories close and are build outside in another country. This has consequences- serious consequences over time as it spreads to different industries. FOr the first time in history. A foreign nation makes practically everything and US acts only as a consuming nation- this means the workers jobs and incomes in the US are destroyed. It is often a sign of serious decline in the Nation. $295 billion/$438 billion is 67%. This is the China number shown on DJT's chart in the Rose Garden. The tariff and non tariff barriers and currency manipulation that China conducts in trade with US is measured in this way as an estimate, much higher than actual tariffs which is why US products don't get the treatment they deserve in China's market.   ...

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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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Michael Shear of the NYT describes Biden's thinking about China and his candour during fund raising events for his campaign. Biden says he seeks "competition, not conflict with China." He tells an audience in Utah, "I don't want to hurt China, but I'm watching." Biden signed an executive order last week banning American investment in certain technology industries in China that could enhance its military capabilities. In relations with China Biden is moving forward with easing tensions by having Blinken, Kerry, Raimondo and other officials visit Beijing to ensure open communications and discussion. Biden seems to be following two tracks one of being open about China and the evolution of the relationship in erratic ways over different administrations where it was counterproductive for both nations- creating more potential for conflict than less when technology flowed freely from the US to China in business to business dealings- that did not reflect how the US sees both its responsibilities and its leadership in world affairs over the twenty first century. China has reverted to its political position in the postwar years as it adjusts to the new US perceptions of what happened to US jobs, manufacturing and trade over two decades since the opening to China at the WTO. ...

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Senior diplomat Song Tao, who heads the external affairs department of the Chinese Communist Party, will visit Pyongyang to brief the Korean Workers Party on the recently concluded 19th Party Congress. This visit will reopen a channel for discussion between North Korea and China after the deterioration in relations between the two countries over nuclear tests. The Director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center, Paul Haenle, says the contacts are intended to not let things get too bad. China provides the crude oil lifeline for North Korea, and is pushing for negotiations.

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The sixth round of the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, China, July 9, 2014, between the U.S. and China at the Diaoyutai State Guest House. Jack Lew of Treasury, and John Kerry of the State Department meet their Chinese counterparts and other officials to promote peaceful cooperation. The background for the meeting of increasing tension in the Pacific region between China and its neighbors, the Philippines,Vietnam, and Japan, is acknowledged by president Jinping- "Confrontation between China and the United States would definitely spell disaster for the two countries and for the wider world... The immense sea allows fish to leap at liberty, the vast sky lets birds fly freely. The broad Pacific Ocean has ample space to accomodate our two great nations."

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The Times correspondent in Beijing says he sees two Chinas one that is showing technological advancement in 5G, in space technologies, in information technologies, infrastructure building in big cities. The other China is in rural areas away from the big cities, in smaller towns in regions away from Beijing and Shanghai. These areas have suffered neglect and have changed little over decades, with the focus during industrialization on larger cities and the coastal areas. This is evident in the manner health services infrastructure and development of medical personnel and doctors were neglected in the rush towards building manufacturing and infrastructure of road and rail. There is a shortage of doctors and hospitals, health services are costly, and waiting lists for beds at hospitals is huge. Doctors are also not held in high esteem because the focus is on profit in the market economy that has taken over the health sector.  Education of citizenry on respecting the common welfare which is expected and normal in Europe and America has also suffered during the rush to industrialization. Efforts to ban and eliminate use of certain wild animal foods not being respected by fellow citizens can be seen in this context. This caused the SARS virus epidemic and the epidemic today from the coronavirus. Seen from this angle a slowdown in construction, infrastructure building, and a slowdown in the economy, can even be healthy, so that focus can be shifted to better health, better sanitation, and better medical infrastructure including medical human resource capabilities. Investment in public education on health and self enforcement of rules by citizenry for a better society is indispensable for progress. It is in these conditions that the challenge of the national and international emergency of the coronavirus can be seen today. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on progress so far and the needs of the future. These challenges are even tougher than repeating what one has done before such as building more and more infrastructure, as they involve building a better society through public discipline along with investment in health and education services. This provides a lesson for many Asian, Latin American and African countries in the rush to industrialization. Turning over the health sector to a market economy making services costly and distributed unevenly in the population has not worked in the U.S. for the betterment of all citizens and a healthy society. Carrying this over from U.S. to China and not learning from Europe in what Europe has done well in the less costly and broad distribution of health services for the people, is one of the poorer lessons learned. This is also true for India and South Asia, South East Asian countries in their rush towards industrialization.  ...

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China has made an astonishing turn away from covid restrictions. Yet this comes after three years that hurt growth which will affect the recovery says this column in WSJ. China is looking for 5% growth in 2023. Problems in the way are a public affected by the lockdowns, a covid surge, housing that will take time to recover, and diversification by Foxconn and other companies away from China to India, Vietnam.

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As David Ignatius points out in his trip to China, the China of post 2010 is a lot of things depending on who you talk to in China- cocky, scared, anxious. He comes away perplexed by the range of questions that come up in his mind. The wealth of the coastal cities is stunning, and at the same time as the leaders insist China is still a poor country with deep regional imbalances, and what is less mentioned, the rising inequality in society. How to pull it all together to make possible a transition to development that is evened out across all regions and sections of society and to allow freedom of expression, is a challenge for the new leadership of Xi Jinping in 2011.

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China's GDP growth accelerated slightly to 6.9 percent in the 1st quarter of 2017, after five consecutive quarters of GDP growth at 6.7-6.8%, according to government data. This reflected larger use of steel in the construction industry and more mortgages issued by the state controlled banking sector. Government officials say productivity is improving helping GDP growth, with closing of less efficient manufacturing plants. Industrial production increased 7.6% in March 2017, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The government is trying to control higher lending and reduce the backlog of bad loans at banks. Higher growth helps to reduce the bad loans at banks from the earlier period after 2008 financial crisis, improving financial stability.

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The European Union plans to rebuild its solar panel industry by manufacturing in the home country. This means shifting away from supply channels where China controls 80% of production. Chancellor Merkel failed to see the risks of letting German companies be decimated by China's subsidy program supporting solar panel makers in China. A system of customs duties failed when China threatened to retaliate with duties on German car exports. In the end Germany like the US under president Obama and Trump after 2010 failed to support domestic solar panel makers.  Now subsidies are accepted way of competing with China for both the US and the EU. The US under the Biden administration is fully committed to compete with China by developing its own solar panel manufacturing industry with the kind of help China is giving to its own solar panel makers. The EU is following the same path. From 200 gigawatts in 2023 the EU's target is 600 gigawatts from solar by 2030. The 400 gigawatts will come from through a policy of make at home in the EU, including raw materials, polysilicon, wafers, and assembly. Subsidies are now the way the US and the EU plan to get back what they lost to China, their critical manufacturing advantage through errors in policy. The European Commission is also changing the rules to accomodate the move. A story of one more critical advantage surrendered through the orthodoxy of free markets without policymakers understanding what they were doing. ...