Key details on the agenda and deliverables for President Donald Trump’s trip to China early next month remain unclear as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer prepare to meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris over Sunday and Monday.
Over the last couple of months, there have been several policy and regulatory updates in China’s financial services sector. Most importantly, today a new financial administration was announced at the National People’s Congress.
On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang opened China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) by delivering the annual Government Work Report, which sets China’s GDP growth target for the year and other high-level priorities. This is released in concert with the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) annual draft Plan for Economic and Social Development and the Ministry of Finance’s draft central and local government budgets, which include further details.
During primetime on Tuesday, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the CCP held its first hearing, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America.” Two former US national security advisors, a human rights advocate, and a leader in the US manufacturing sector testified.
Since the United States imposed a set of unprecedented new export controls on China’s chipmaking sector last October, China’s leaders have struggled to form a coordinated policy response that offers clear instructions to government regulators and industry. One unifying fact is that all parties see US restrictions and efforts to bring allies on board as a serious threat to China’s domestic semiconductor sector and its ability to interact with the highly globalized semiconductor industry.
As China’s local governments concluded their annual Two Sessions meetings last month, local GDP targets and personnel changes have been announced. These meetings are forerunners to the national Two Sessions, China’s annual parliamentary meetings which are scheduled to begin on March 4 and provide a window to the national economic outlook and forthcoming policies.
Despite bilateral tensions, years of escalating trade restrictions, and lockdowns in China for much of 2022, US-China trade in goods increased 5.2 percent in 2022 to a record high of $690.6 billion. Growth in trade with China is part of a broader wave of record US trade with the world.
Many companies are preparing senior executive travel to China for the first time in several years now that China has eliminated quarantine requirements on inbound travelers. To better understand the different factors companies are considering in planning executive travel to China, USCBC conducted a short survey to help members benchmark against each other’s plans.
Earlier this week, Select Committee on the CPP Chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) returned from a surprise visit to Taiwan. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published upon his return, he noted that nearly all of the Taiwan officials he met with saw the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a wake-up call, and he argued that it must be a priority for the United States to clear the nearly $20 billion backlog of arms sales to Taiwan.
The Greater Cleveland Chinese Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) serves as a bridge between mainland Chinese who want to invest in the United States and Americans looking for business opportunities in China. The Trump-era trade war and the spread of COVID-19 brought big challenges to the organization.
US-China relations are at a difficult and highly uncertain inflection point. Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated in the Munich Security Conference February 17 to 19. Secretary Blinken and President Xi Jinping’s top foreign policy adviser, Wang Yi, reportedly had a tense private meeting during which both sides drew lines in the sand and did not appear to de-escalate the balloon incident as was hoped.
