Welcome to the 217th edition of Trade War.
China’s Politburo announces the much-delayed Third Plenum will be held on July 15-18. Meeting to focus on building up battered consumer confidence, addressing the ailing housing market, supporting industrial innovation in “new productive forces,” and revamping the tax system to benefit local governments facing new debt challenges.
A front-page commentary in the People’s Daily says goal is to build “a high-level socialist market economy.”
Canada to follow US and EU with tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Premier Li Qiang warns that “regressive” decoupling will “drag the world into a destructive spiral,” speaking at a World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian. And a Chinese EV maker sees an 843% surge in sales in Europe.
U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns has spoken out on the challenges the American embassy faces in China, with unusually candid criticism of Chinese authorities. And a rebuttal in China’s state press says the veteran diplomat should “should know better than most China-bashing politicians.”
Two takes:
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell calls for more Chinese in the US to study “humanities and social sciences, not particle physics.” And a well-known Hong Kong columnist responds derisively, saying Chinese parents “aren’t so stupid” and instead will have their children study STEM in China.
Notable/In depth:
Great explainer on the Chinese political system
Orville Schell on Deng Xiaoping’s historic 1979 visit to the US
And what Xi Jinping learned from his father’s dealings with Moscow
Third Plenum to be held July 15-18
China’s Politburo has announced that the much delayed Third Plenum will be held from July 15 - 18 in Beijing. With the once-every-five-year enclave usually focused on economic reform, the big question is what those will entail: deep, structural changes that could eventually put the economy back on a long-term sustainable growth trajectory—or piecemeal, small steps that will accomplish little.
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