According to media reports, the US and China are due to meet for talks on August 15 to discuss compliance with the phase 1 trade deal signed in January. Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative, and Liu He, the Chinese Vice Premier, are expected to participate by videoconference. Under this agreement China is supposed to increase its US imports by USD200bn over 2 years but looks to be falling behind on meeting this target.
These talks come amidst a period when US-China relations have been under pressure on a number of fronts beyond trade. These include China imposing a security Law in Hong Kong, US accusations of human rights abuses of the Uighurs, US data security concerns, Trump’s criticism of China’s handling of the coronavirus, a dispute about China’s territorial claim in the South China Sea.
US data security concerns have been a key area of contention: examples include Huawei but more recently with the US ordering China to shut its Houston consulate office with the US State Department stating they had directed the closure “in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information.” China responded with the closure of the US consulate in Chengdu. This was followed by Trump’s ultimatum to ByteDance Ltd the Chinese owner of Tik Tok to either close down its operations or sell them to a US company by September 15. Mike Pompeo has been vocal about this issue stating: “These Chinese software companies doing business in the United States, whether it’s TikTok or WeChat – there are countless more – as Peter Navarro said, are feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party, their national security apparatus. It could be their facial recognition pattern. It could be information about their residence, their phone numbers, their friends, who they’re connected to. Those are the issues that President Trump has made clear we’re going to take care of. These are true national security issues. They are true privacy issues for the American people.” With all this playing out, the talks could also be of interest given Liu He has oversight over the technology sector amongst his portfolio of responsibilities.
The US has also announced that Alex Azar, the US Health and Human Services Secretary, will shortly visit Taiwan to promote public health co-operation and discuss the pandemic. This is considered to be the highest-level visit by an American official since 1979, a move that is likely to antagonise China. Alex Azar commented: “I look forward to conveying President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s global health leadership and underscoring our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health.” Not surprisingly, Wang Wenbin, China’s foreign ministry spokesman responded to the news: “The issue of the Taiwan Strait is the most sensitive issue facing China-US relations. We hope the US will stop all official exchanges between the two sides to avoid damage to China-US relations and keep the stability of the Taiwan Strait”.