US-China trade war: All stories

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

The US Treasury Department has officially labeled China a currency manipulator, causing stock markets to plunge around the world. The declaration was made on Monday afternoon, after the Chinese central bank allowed its currency, the yuan, to sink to its weakest level against the US dollar in 11 years. On Monday, the three major US indices ended the trading day about 3% lower. It was the biggest one-day fall of 2019. Asian shares followed suit on Tuesday. Why is this important? The move signals an escalation in the ongoing US-China trade war, which both sides say they’ve been trying to resolve. Last year, Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports. He announced new tariff

American farmers risk losing the Chinese market for good in the escalated trade war, a top agriculture official in China said. On Sunday, China increased tariffs on $60 billion of US products. The planned retaliatory move slapped tariffs of up to 25% on a targeted list of 5,140 US products and covered virtually all American agricultural products, including soybeans, cotton, poultry, wine, fresh produce and frozen goods. Han Jun, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, highlighted the potential pain the new tariffs may cause US farmers, but played down their impact at home. “Bilateral agricultural product trade between China and the US, including soybean trade, will never go back to n

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has dropped its regular programming to air four anti-American movies and documentaries amid an intensifying US-China trade war. The sudden programming change since Thursday underscores Beijing’s turn to nationalism to rally public support for its refusal to cede to US demands as it digs in for a potentially protracted trade battle. Google’s move on Monday to suspend key parts of its business relationship with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei could stir anti-American sentiment further still. While the American tech company said it was complying with US government requirements, effective on May 16, the suspension is widely perceived in China as an assault on a Chine

Twenty years ago this week, then US ambassador to China James Sasser and his staff found themselves trapped in the American embassy in Beijing. Outside, thousands of furious Chinese gathered to protest against the US’ bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, capital of the former Yugoslavia. It was the biggest demonstration in the Chinese capital since the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square. They had reason to be angry. On May 7, 1999, five laser-guided bombs dropped by a US plane during a NATO bombing campaign struck the Chinese embassy, killing three Chinese journalists and injuring about 20 other Chinese citizens. Beijing slammed Washington a day after the bom