US-China trade war: All stories

Sweeping legislation that could remove publicly traded Chinese companies from US stock exchanges has the potential to trip up businesses and investors at home as Chinese firms move to other countries for capital. The bill – the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act – aims to address a thorny issue US securities regulators have had with Beijing for decades: its refusal to allow audit inspections of their companies.  If it becomes law, Chinese companies will be required to comply with the rules or face being delisted, which would put $1.3 trillion of US-listed Chinese firms, including behemoths Alibaba Group and Tencent, at risk of losing access to the world’s largest capital markets. Pol

China has unveiled plans to turn its southern island of Hainan into the mainland’s answer to Hong Kong or Singapore, as it tries to dampen the risk of decoupling with the United States. Beijing on Monday outlined a package of special policies to make the tropical island a free-trade port by lowering the income tax rate for selected individuals and companies, scrapping import duties and relaxing visa requirements for tourists and business travelers. The island province of 9.5 million people will also enjoy freedoms in terms of trade, investment and the movement of people and data, according to the plans. The project to create a regional trade, shopping and shipping center in Hainan – which at

China could cut the vast amount of US government debt it buys in response to speculation that the United States may not repay it, amid a war of words over the coronavirus and trade, analysts have said. US news reports indicated that White House officials had debated several ways to offset the cost of the coronavirus outbreak, including not repaying some or all of the nearly $1.1 trillion debt that the US government owes China. The discussion of China’s financial connection to the US government has come as President Donald Trump and other American officials have increased their criticism of Beijing over the origins and handling of the coronavirus, and threatened new import tariffs to penaliz

Basketball legend Michael Jordan’s 8-year-long saga through the Chinese courts resulted in a partial victory for his intellectual property case against a Chinese sports brand. China’s top judicial body, the Supreme People’s Court, on March 4 found Qiaodan Sports, a company based in China’s southern Fujian province, had illegally used Jordan’s name in Chinese characters, according to the verdict. However, the court also ruled that the dribbling silhouette used as the Chinese company’s logo did not violate Jordan’s portraiture rights, meaning Qiaodan Sports could continue to use the image.   China's Supreme People's Court has handed basketball legend #MichaelJordan's brand #AirJordan a victory

In a ceremony attended by President Xi Jinping, China’s first home-built aircraft carrier officially entered service on Tuesday. The commissioning of the warship, called the Shandong, is a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to build up its naval power. A commentary published by a social media account affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily said the Shandong will be deployed to the South China Sea, where “it is very likely that it will have face-to-face encounters with foreign military vessels.”   “The Shandong is aimed at achieving domination in both the air and sea,” the Wednesday commentary said. The article did not name any nation, but Beijing has repeatedly

China’s former commerce minister has issued a strong rebuff against “unthinkable” suggestions that the world’s two largest economies could disengage from each other due to the ongoing tensions caused by the trade war, with Chen Deming saying: “To hell with decoupling!” The US and China have found themselves linked for the past 40 years, but with the 18-month trade war having led to the straining of the relationship, suggestions have been made that a broader economic and technological decoupling could happen. “Is globalization falling into ‘hemispherization’ or is the whole process halted? Whoever insists on decoupling …. will fall behind and even be phased out in the advancement of science a

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that could put diplomatic and economic pressure on the Hong Kong and Beijing governments over what American lawmakers said were human rights abuses.  While not yet law, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act could alter the relationships between Washington, Beijing and Hong Kong. What does the act do? The bill’s sponsor, Florida Republican Marco Rubio, said it would hold accountable officials for Hong Kong’s “eroding autonomy and human rights violations.” In practice, the act calls for sanctions against anyone deemed to have violated freedoms guaranteed under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, a constitutional document that underpins the city’s special statu

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has deployed counter-intelligence agents in all 56 US field offices and centralized efforts to thwart China’s aggressive theft of strategic secrets and its recruitment of American scientists, according to Senate testimony on Tuesday. Field offices are command posts spread across American cities that are used to carry out local and regional operations.  “Technology is the key to military and economic power,” John Brown, assistant director of the FBI’s counter-intelligence division, told the US Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Time and again the Communist Party has shown that it will do whatever is

The sentencing of a gang of drug traffickers in a smoggy city in northern China on Thursday offers a glimpse into a key area of cooperation between US authorities and their Chinese counterparts: tackling the deadly fentanyl scourge devastating communities across the United States. After the conclusion of the case – which saw one gang member given a suspended death sentence and eight others jailed, two of them for life – a group of Chinese and American law enforcement officers gathered in Xingtai, an industrial city in Hebei province, to share details of how their joint investigation brought down an international fentanyl smuggling operation. It was the first public example of how the two cou

The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa restrictions on Chinese government officials suspected of repressing Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in China. The sanctions target Chinese officials “who are believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, the detention or abuse of Uygurs, Kazakhs or other members of Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, China,” said the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  The announcement came a day after the Commerce Department decided to blacklist 28 Chinese entities and firms allegedly linked to abuses in Xinjiang. The organizations are blocked from buying products from US companies without approval from Washington. China has forcibly detained over one mil