• Mexican president to meet China“s Xi at summit in San Francisco
• US set to take action to win China“s cooperation on fentanyl
• China receives US equipment to make advanced chips despite new rules-report
• UN members concerned China, Russia helping North Korea -US“ Austin
• China’s Xi, in need of a win, appears ready to engage with Biden
• China’s cautious, curious Middle East game
• [Business] Why businesses are pulling billions in profits from China
• Tricky politics on menu for China“s Xi at US business dinner
• Austin: UN states concerned China and Russia helping North Korea
• Senator asks Treasury to bar Chinese battery firms, minerals from US EV tax credits
• US Commerce chief Raimondo to meet Chinese counterpart Wang during APEC
• Blinken, new UK foreign minister discuss Israel, Ukraine and China

Mexican president to meet China“s Xi at summit in San Francisco

https://reuters.com/article/mexico-china-meeting/mexican-president-to-meet-chinas-xi-at-summit-in-san-francisco-idUSKBN3291IO

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday in San Francisco during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Mexico's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Lopez Obrador, who seldom travels outside Mexico, is also scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden the following day on the sidelines of the APEC meetings.

Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told a press conference that Lopez Obrador and Xi would discuss trade as well as how to improve bilateral supply chains for what she said would be their first meeting in person.

"It's a very important meeting," said Barcena, noting that China had always wanted close relations with Mexico.

Barcena said Mexico's economic relations with the United States would be at the heart of the U.S.-Mexico talks, pointing to billions of dollars in U.S. investment coming to Mexico.

Immigration and border security, as well as efforts to curb drug trafficking would also be prominent, she said, noting the two sides would look at how to better control the arrival of precursors from Asia used to make deadly opioid fentanyl.

Barcena said Lopez Obrador would also hold a bilateral meeting with Canada on Thursday afternoon, without being more specific. A Mexican official said the meeting would be with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

US set to take action to win China“s cooperation on fentanyl

https://reuters.com/article/apec-usa-china-fentanyl/us-set-to-take-action-to-win-chinas-cooperation-on-fentanyl-idUSKBN3291IA

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is set to remove restrictions on China's Institute of Forensic Science in a bid to step up cooperation with Beijing to halt the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in the United States.

Blocking fentanyl "precursor" chemicals has been a priority for Washington as the rate of overdose deaths involving the drug more than tripled from 2016 through 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Biden will discuss the issue with China's President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Washington hoped the summit would result in action to help combat the fentanyl trade. A source familiar with plans said the U.S. was ready to remove restrictions on the Institute of Forensic Science, part of China's Ministry of Public Security.

Washington put the institute on the Commerce Department's "entity list" in 2020 over alleged abuses toward Uyghurs and other minority groups - effectively barring it from receiving U.S. exports. China has long questioned why the U.S. would expect cooperation on fentanyl while targeting the institute.

China's embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the fentanyl issue.

Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and is increasingly mixed with other illicit drugs, often with lethal results. U.S. drug-related overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 in 2021, according to government estimates.

China receives US equipment to make advanced chips despite new rules-report

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-congress-chips/china-receives-us-equipment-to-make-advanced-chips-despite-new-rules-report-idUSKBN3291DT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese companies are buying up U.S. chipmaking equipment to make advanced semiconductors, despite a raft of new export curbs aimed at thwarting advances in the country’s semiconductor industry, a congressional report said on Tuesday.

The 741 page annual report, released by the House of Representative’s bipartisan select committee on China, takes aim at the Biden administration’s Oct. 2022 export curbs, which seek to bar Chinese chipmakers from getting U.S. chipmaking tools if they would be used to manufacture advanced chips at the 14 nanometer node or below.

With the Commerce Department using the 14 nanometer restriction limit, “importers are often able to purchase the equipment if they claim it is being used on an older production line, and with limited capacity for end-use inspections, it is difficult to verify the equipment is not being used to produce more advanced chips,” the report stated.

The finding comes as the United States scrambles to figure out how Chinese telecoms giant Huawei was able to produce an advanced 7 nanometer chip to power its Mate 60 Pro smartphone at China’s top chipmaker SMIC, despite the export curbs announced last year.

Huawei and SMIC were also added to a trade restriction list in 2019 and 2020, which in theory bars U.S. suppliers from shipping certain technology to the companies.

China watchers had theorized that SMIC could have made the chip with equipment obtained prior to the October 2022 rules, but it had other options for obtaining the equipment from oversees, the report shows.

The United States managed to plug a key loophole in its efforts to stymie China’s access to advanced chipmaking tools by convincing allies Japan and the Netherlands, with similarly robust chipmaking equipment industries, to announce their own restrictions on exports of the coveted technology.

But China stockpiled equipment by taking advantage of the lagtime between the United States’ October 2022 rules, and Japan and the Netherlands’ similar moves in July and September of 2023 respectively, the report details.

According to the document, between January and August 2023, China imported $3.2 billion (RMB 23.5 billion) worth of semiconductor manufacturing machines from the Netherlands, a 96.1% increase over the $1.7 billion (RMB 12 billion) recorded over the same period in 2022. China’s imports of semiconductor equipment from all countries totaled $13.8 billion (RMB 100 billion) over the first eight months of 2023, it added.

The report does not outline a specific recommendation to address the gaps in the U.S. rules, but urges Congress to request an annual evaluation, to be completed within 6 months by the General Accountability Office and later made public, of the effectiveness of export controls on chipmaking equipment to China.

---

UN members concerned China, Russia helping North Korea -US“ Austin

https://reuters.com/article/southkorea-usa-un/un-members-concerned-china-russia-helping-north-korea-us-austin-idUSKBN32904O

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday U.N. member states enforcing the Korean War armistice were concerned that China and Russia were helping North Korea expand its military capabilities by enabling Pyongyang to evade U.N. sanctions, .

The UN states and South Korea vowed a united response to any aggression or attacks by North Korea on the south, they said in a statement at the Seoul meeting attended by Austin and defence officials of the 17 countries that make up the U.N. Command (UNC), the body that oversees the armistice.

"We are deeply concerned that the PRC and Russia are helping the DPRK expand its capabilities by enabling it to evade sanctions from the U.N. Security council," Austin said, referring to the People's Republic of China and North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"We're also troubled by the recent growth in military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK," he said.

Washington has accused North Korea of supplying military equipment to Russia for use in its war with Ukraine, and Moscow of providing technical military support to help the North.

North Korea and Russia have denied any arms deals, though their leaders pledged closer military cooperation when they met in September in Russia's far east.

Asked about Austin's comment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "All such statements are absolutely unfounded, they are not substantiated by anything, and each new similar statement only further devalues all others in this regard."

China, North Korea's closest ally, has said it was complying with international obligations.

The UNC "will be united upon any renewal of hostilities or armed attack on the Korean peninsula," a joint statement between UNC and South Korea said, condemning North Korea's "unlawful" nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said Pyongyang had been warned not to attempt any aggressive acts, noting that unlike in 1950, when the Korean War broke out, North Korea is now a member state of the United Nations.

"If North Korea ever invades the South again, it will be self-contradictory, where a U.N. member state would be attacking the U.N. Command," Shin told the meeting. "If the countries that backed North Korea during the Korean War ever try to help again, then those countries will also receive grave punishment from the international community along with North Korea."

China and the Soviet Union backed the North in combat against U.N. member states led by the United States. China and North Korea are parties to the armistice with the UNC.

The UNC member states, which include the United States, Britain, Australia and Turkey, sent troops or contributed medical support during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Established in 1950, the UNC was mandated to restore peace and enforce the armistice while acting as a channel of communication with North Korea.

It is led by the commander of the U.S. military stationed in South Korea.

North Korea on Monday called the UNC "a U.S. tool for confrontation" that has nothing to do with the United Nations and an "illegal war organisation" that must be dissolved if the outbreak of a new war on the Korean peninsula is to be prevented.

On Monday, Austin and Shin agreed to revise a bilateral security agreement aimed at deterring North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threats.

The defence chiefs said they would step up joint drills and cooperate with Japan to deter and better prepare for any North Korean attack, while seeing the need for dialogue as a path toward peace on the peninsula.

The U.S. and South Korean navies are carrying out joint drills this week off the east coast of the peninsula, including anti-submarine exercises, the South Korean navy said on Tuesday.

China’s Xi, in need of a win, appears ready to engage with Biden

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/14/china-xi-biden-meeting-apec/2023-10-24T18:49:12.228Z

China’s strongest leader in decades may be in his most vulnerable moment since coming to power 11 years ago. That could affect how Xi Jinping approaches President Biden on Wednesday during their first meeting in a year.

For Xi, the meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco is a much-needed chance for him to show his own country — and the world — that he is a leader who can effectively manage China’s most important relationship. And he will probably be eager to ease tensions, which are at their worst since the two countries normalized ties in 1979.

“Xi needs the summit more than Biden does. He needs to show he’s respected, that he has stature,” said Minxin Pei, a political scientist focusing on China-U.S. ties at Claremont McKenna College. “He’s definitely in a worse position than in November of last year.”

When the two leaders met before the Group of 20 summit in Bali last November, Xi was riding high. Coronavirus rules were being loosened and the Chinese economy was expected to pick up. Xi finally returned to the world stage after staying in China during the pandemic, meeting with more than 20 heads of state. The East was rising and the West, namely the United States, was declining — or so the Chinese establishment thought.

What a difference a year makes.

While Xi’s position and hold on power within the opaque party system do not appear to be in question — in October he secured a third term and stacked the party’s top positions with loyalists — he is now in the most challenging moment yet of his tenure.

He experienced the largest street protests since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations that ended in the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, a response to his deeply unpopular “zero covid” policy. He then oversaw a chaotic U-turn, which resulted in an unknown number of deaths.

The expected post-covid economic bounce has not happened. Xi has also been plagued by declining confidence in the Chinese economy, hit by a property crisis and rising youth unemployment. Young people talk about “lying flat” or being the “last generation” as they refuse to marry or have children as an act of protest.

Foreign investment and business confidence have fallen because of increased government regulation on the private industry and crackdowns on foreign firms over alleged spying. China has witnessed the largest capital outflows in years.

Together, this means China may not meet its growth target of 5 percent this year, already the country’s lowest target in three decades.

How Chinese aggression is increasing the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait

The external environment has worsened too.

Tensions between the world’s two most powerful countries have reached a fever pitch in the past year, with economic confrontation rising amid a tech war over everything from semiconductors to rare metals needed for electric vehicles. The risk of outright military confrontation is growing.

Biden last month said the United States would defend the Philippines in the event of a Chinese attack after Chinese harassment of Philippine vessels in disputed parts of the South China Sea. There may be more Chinese military maneuvers around Taiwan in the lead up to the presidential election in January, while the U.S. presidential election could narrow the space for further rapprochement.

And Xi, best known for concentrating power in a way not seen since the days of Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, appears to not always be in control. A high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon that floated into U.S. airspace and set back U.S.-China talks by months happened without Xi’s knowledge, according to U.S. officials.

The disappearance and purges of officials who present China’s face to the world — first, the foreign minister and most recently the defense minister — have raised questions about turmoil within the Chinese Communist Party under Xi’s command and embarrassed the Chinese state.

“It’s literally been one disaster after another,” said Evan Medeiros, a professor at Georgetown who served as a national security official in the Obama administration, referring to Xi’s third term as head of the party and the military, which began in March this year. “His third term has been full of policy failures and challenges.”

Unexplained absences by Xi on the world stage have also triggered speculation about what he may be dealing with at home. In August, the 70-year-old missed a scheduled speech at the BRICS summit of emerging economies.

The number of leaders attending each of the past three Belt and Road Forums has fallen steadily since the first one in 2017. pic.twitter.com/k8l6VDuXpE

— The China-Global South Project (@ChinaGSProject) October 18, 2023

The stakes are high for Xi personally. By installing himself as leader indefinitely, he broke with his predecessors who set up a system of power sharing and succession to avoid the excesses of overly centralized control under Mao. Yet by consolidating power in himself, he has also become the central figure to blame for his country’s problems.

Last month, the sudden death of former Chinese premier Li Keqiang, an economist and free-market advocate, prompted an outpouring of grief that was seen as an implicit rebuttal of the more state-driven and ideological path Xi has taken. (In the days after Li’s death, Chinese outlets were told to limit “overly effusive” praise of Li, according to a leaked directive.)

“Praising Li Keqiang for caring about the people and telling the truth implies that Xi Jinping doesn’t care about the people and speaks only empty words,” said Zhang Lun, professor of Chinese studies at Université de Cergy-Pontoise in Paris.

“Discontent with Xi used to be concentrated at the top, but bit by bit it has reached the level of the public. This is the situation Xi Jinping faces today. The loathing of him has reached a critical point,” he said.

China and Russia cast U.S. as agent of global instability at military forum

For Xi, improved ties with the United States will give him more space to focus on problems at home.

Beijing has made an effort to appear ready to engage, reciprocating the flurry of visits by U.S. officials to China since the summer in an effort to make this week’s meeting happen. This month, state media lauded a visit by former U.S. pilots who helped China resist the Japanese in the 1940s. Last week, state news agency Xinhua started running a series on the importance of repairing the U.S.-China relationship.

“The leaders meeting is a test of how responsive to costs Xi is and whether he will pragmatically adjust his policies to reduce these costs,” said Susan Shirk, a research professor at the University of California at San Diego and former senior State Department official.

Biden meets top Chinese diplomat as rivals seek to manage tensions

While Xi may be more willing to engage to stabilize relations in the short term, fundamental differences between Washington and Beijing remain — and vulnerability could mean he takes an even harder line, analysts warn.

“Xi remains fiercely nationalistic and might even become more so in areas like Taiwan, both because of his personal ideological views and to deter rival powers that he fears will try to take advantage of China’s weaknesses,” said Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

In a system such as the CCP’s, turmoil could actually strengthen rather than weaken his hand: External threats such as U.S. hostility and efforts to constrain Chinese technological advances give Xi additional grounds to say his vision is needed more than ever.

“When you face these kinds of challenges, in the past the reaction wasn’t we need to change the top leader. It’s that we need to rally to the top leader even more,” said Joseph Torigian, a China historian at American University.

The danger for Xi is how far and how long discontent spreads.

“This is like a chronic disease. It’s not a heart attack,” said Claremont McKenna’s Pei. “If things continue to go downhill, you will have a vicious cycle that is people start doubting his leadership more. His authority erodes even more, which means he will have even less influence over policy, and as a result he will become less secure.”

China’s cautious, curious Middle East game

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/14/china-israel-gaza-russia-beijing-influence-west/2023-11-13T16:57:21.265Z

You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest free, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox every weekday.

When it comes to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, China is taking a back seat. President Xi Jinping’s first public comments about the course of the conflict, which has captured global attention and diverted the energies and focus of the Biden administration, came almost two weeks after it began. Xi showed more political restraint than his autocratic fellow traveler Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in a recent speech said his “fists clench and eyes tear up” when he sees the human suffering caused by Israel’s bombardments — never mind the arc of destruction unleashed by Putin’s own wars in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

But as Xi goes to meet President Biden this week at a summit of Pacific rim nations in San Francisco, the war in the Middle East will shadow the deliberations. China took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council at the beginning of the month and has cast itself as a world power eager for peace and capable of brokering a cease-fire. It has also sparred with the United States over competing Security Council resolutions they helped put forward in recent weeks about the war, each vetoed by the other.

“Countries should uphold the moral conscience, rather than clinging on to geopolitical calculations, let alone double standards,” China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, said last month, gesturing to the United States’ shielding of Israel from international censure. “China will continue to stand on the side of international fairness and justice, on the side of international law, and on the side of the legitimate aspirations of the Arab and Islamic world.”

Chinese diplomats have toured various Middle Eastern capitals since Oct. 7, when the Islamist group Hamas launched a brazen strike on southern Israel from Gaza that marked the bloodiest single day in the history of modern Israel. Whereas the Kremlin hosted a delegation of Hamas officials at the end of last month, China has been more circumspect. Wang Di, Beijing’s head of West Asian and North African affairs, was in Tehran over the weekend and cited an “urgent need for cease-fire” while also welcoming “consistent progress” in Sino-Iranian ties. Iran, the main foreign power backing Hamas, recently joined the BRICS bloc of non-Western nations, within which China is a key player.

China’s influence in the Middle East is growing, but it’s still somewhat lightweight. The budding superpower flexed its geopolitical muscles earlier this year when it helped broker a rapprochement between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. In August, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, even suggested that Beijing was presiding over a “wave of reconciliation” in the Middle East, as the region’s governments prioritized their societies’ development alongside various partnerships with the Asian economic titan.

Now, though, the conflict threatens to expand along well-worn fault lines: Pro-Iranian proxies are escalating actions against U.S. and Israeli interests, while a U.S.-engineered process of Arab normalization with Israel is in deep freeze. In all this, China appears more interested in discursive posturing than actual diplomatic effort. It’s expending little to none of its leverage over Iran to curb the Islamic republic’s activities or rein in its proxies.

Instead, it’s cultivating an “anti-Western neutrality,” as Ahmed Aboudoh of Britain’s Chatham House think tank explained — that is, “neutrality that stops short of condemning any country or force that undermines Western centrality in the global order (rather than explicitly lending support to Hamas).” This has clear rhetorical ends given the groundswell of anger in the Middle East and much of the Global South over the perceived double standards in play as the West has enabled Israel’s disproportionate onslaught on Gaza.

The Biden administration, which sees competition with China as the key driving concern of its foreign policy, is aware of the backlash it faces and has quietly tried to restrain the worst impulses of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government. But it’s still viewed as complicit in the soaring death toll in Gaza.

“There is a degree to which people in the Arab world and the Global South are drawing a line between Gaza destruction and the presidential embrace of Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told my colleague Michael Birnbaum. “There’s a way that the United States is hitched to what the Israelis want to do, whether the United States wants to do it or not.”

Israel presides over a new Palestinian catastrophe

China, on the other hand, is being simply opportunistic. It can play up its solidarity with the broader Muslim and Arab world, even as it carries on its persecution of countless Uyghur Muslims in the region of Xinjiang — a cause that has not engendered anywhere close to the same attention as that of the Palestinians. “That particular issue doesn’t resonate in the ‘Muslim world’ the same way that the Palestinian issue does,” Neysun Mahboubi, director of the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Wall Street Journal. He added that while the Biden administration courts global ire in its support of Israel, there “is an opportunity for China to shape an image of being a responsible world power, and more so than its competitors, including the United States.”

But optics can only take you so far. Beijing’s economic clout is considerable, but its capacity to actually shape major policy outcomes elsewhere is more fledgling. “The reality is that Beijing in many respects is a ‘great power lite’ in the Middle East and rest of the world, certainly outside of China’s own Asia-Pacific neighborhood,” wrote Andrew Scobell of the U.S. Institute of Peace. “Beijing is also risk averse because [Chinese Communist Party] leaders fear failure and are afraid of global overreach.”

Still, China can find benefit in an overwhelmed Washington, fighting fires on multiple fronts. “China does not aspire to replace the US position in the Middle East, but will undoubtedly be pleased to see the US again drawn into a conflict in the region,” Aboudoh wrote. “Chinese experts believe the more strategic non-East Asian theatres that require Washington’s attention, the more time and space China gains to assert its strategic domination in the Indo-Pacific.”

“No one … can watch the United States transfer huge amounts of American artillery munitions, smart bombs, missiles, and other weaponry to Ukraine and Israel without recognizing that American stockpiles are being depleted,” wrote Indian geopolitical commentator Brahma Chellaney. “For Xi, who has called Taiwan’s incorporation into the People’s Republic a ‘historic mission,’ the longer these wars continue, the better.”

[Business] Why businesses are pulling billions in profits from China

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67353177?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Tricky politics on menu for China“s Xi at US business dinner

https://reuters.com/article/apec-usa-business-xi/tricky-politics-on-menu-for-chinas-xi-at-us-business-dinner-idUSKBN329047

Top business leaders in the United States are expected to dine with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco on Wednesday as he seeks to court American companies and counter his country's recent struggles to entice foreign investment.

The dinner on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will follow a day of talks between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden, aimed at stabilizing fraught ties between the world's two largest economies.

For American businesses, it will be a chance to hear directly from China's leader as they search for ways to navigate China's economic slowdown, a U.S. push to "de-risk" some American supply chains away from China, and uncertainty caused by expanding Chinese security rules.

"The purpose of the dinner is to foster better communication," one source close to the organizers told Reuters, declining to say who would speak while confirming representatives from both the Chinese and U.S. governments would share the podium.

But the event, yet to be formally announced by hosts U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR), also presents uneasy optics.

According to event notifications seen by Reuters, some U.S. firms will pay tens of thousands of dollars to hear a "Chinese state leader" from a government that Washington has accused of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs. China has vigorously denied the accusations.

The USCBC and NCUSCR both declined to comment on the planned dinner. China's embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Xi, who is widely expected to deliver a speech, will be eager to convince U.S. industry that China is still open for business after recording its first quarterly deficit in foreign direct investment.

Even as China this year cast off COVID-19 pandemic controls that effectively shut its borders, it has grown more suspicious of engagement with Western companies, in line with Xi's emphasis on national security. Xi has overseen a crackdown on U.S. consultancy and due-diligence firms, a further blow to investor confidence.

For decades, business and trade has been at the center of U.S.-China relations, helping to fuel China's explosive economic resurgence and offering what Beijing has often described as the ballast in otherwise contentious ties.

But concerns about a new style cold war between the rival economic and geopolitical superpowers has increasingly placed companies in the cross hairs of both governments.

Xi is on his first visit to the U.S. in more than six years and the pricey dinner, up to $40,000 for a table of eight, according to one notice for the event, is routine by standards for past Chinese presidential visits.

Reuters was not able to obtain a list of attendees, but executives of some companies who spoke privately to Reuters said they would steer clear given questions about the utility for their operations in China and U.S. political risks.

Jeff Moon, a former U.S. trade official turned business adviser, said China's goal would be to soften Xi's image and attract investment, but that the dinner was unlikely to "move any needles."

U.S. lawmakers have castigated some American businesses for turning a blind eye to allegations of forced labor in China and some have been scathing in their criticism of the event.

"How does that dinner conversation go? 'Wow, this filet mignon is a little dry. How's your extrajudicial internment of over a million Uyghur Muslims going?" said Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House of Representative's select committee on China.

Despite human rights concerns, Biden has made a diplomatic push to improve relations, which slid to what many analysts viewed as an all-time low after the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February.

The Biden administration says communication at the highest level is essential to prevent competition veering into conflict, and in the interest of the global economy too.

Biden's Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated ahead of the APEC summit that while the U.S. sought to reduce its dependence on China in some areas, it did not seek broad economic decoupling.

The dinner is Xi's "reassurance tour," and business leaders would look to him to set expectations for how foreign companies would be treated in China, said Nirav Patel, chief executive of consultancy The Asia Group.

"They have come to accept that there's no substitute for hearing and seeing and observing what Xi Jinping is doing," said Patel. "Of course, there are some that want to be able to demonstrate that they are committed to China and their presence in these meetings demonstrates that."

Austin: UN states concerned China and Russia helping North Korea

https://reuters.com/article/southkorea-usa-un/austin-un-states-concerned-china-and-russia-helping-north-korea-idUSKBN32904O

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday U.N. member countries enforcing the Korean War armistice are concerned that China and Russia are helping North Korea to expand its military capabilities by enabling it to evade U.N. sanctions.

Austin was speaking at a meeting in South Korea with defence minister and representatives from the 17 countries that make up the U.N. Command that oversees the armistice.

"We are deeply concerned that the PRC and Russia are helping the DPRK expand its capabilities by enabling it to evade sanctions from the U.N. Security council," Austin said.

PRC refers to the People's Republic of China and DPRK is short for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"We're also troubled by the recent growth in military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK," he said.

Senator asks Treasury to bar Chinese battery firms, minerals from US EV tax credits

https://reuters.com/article/usa-autos-china/senator-asks-treasury-to-bar-chinese-battery-firms-minerals-from-us-ev-tax-credits-idUSKBN3281H7

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin urged the U.S. Treasury on Monday to adopt the "strictest possible standards" to prevent Chinese-produced minerals or Chinese battery companies from winning electric vehicle tax credits.

Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, raised concerns in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about reports Chinese battery companies are actively pursuing business opportunities to take advantage of the credits, adding U.S. tax credits "cannot be allowed to be hijacked by adversaries engaging in mineral laundering."

In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act barring $7,500 in future consumer EV tax credits if any battery components are manufactured or assembled by a "foreign entity of concern."

The rules were aimed at weaning U.S. battery supply chains away from China, which Manchin noted is currently responsible for 74% of the world’s cathode production, 92% of anode production, and 76% of lithium-ion battery cell production.

The auto industry awaiting detailed guidance from the Treasury on what is considered a "foreign entity of concern" as they make investment decisions on producing batteries for their transition to electric vehicles.

The foreign entity of concern rules come into effect in 2024 for completed batteries and 2025 for critical minerals used to produce them. The Treasury did not immediately comment.

Manchin said the law does not allow for a "value added test" exception and it "would be unconscionable to reward bad actors through a loose or deliberately weak interpretation."

A key decision in the guidance is whether Ford Motor Co's (F.N) deal to license the technology of Chinese battery manufacturer CATL (300750.SZ) for use in Ford-owned U.S. battery plants will meet the Treasury's standards to access the tax credits. The arrangement has raised concerns among U.S. lawmakers.

Ford put its planned $3.5 billion Michigan battery plant on hold in September and said it was awaiting "final language" from the Treasury on whether batteries made using Chinese technology will qualify for tax credits.

Manchin said Yellen should "use the strictest metrics possible to ensure there are no loopholes that will lead to the laundering of minerals and materials from China or other nations of concern."

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US Commerce chief Raimondo to meet Chinese counterpart Wang during APEC

https://reuters.com/article/apec-usa-china-raimondo/us-commerce-chief-raimondo-to-meet-chinese-counterpart-wang-during-apec-idUSKBN3281LY

The commerce chiefs of the United States and China will meet at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum this week, one of a series of cabinet-level engagements surrounding high-stakes talks between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A U.S. Commerce Department spokesperson confirmed that U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao planned to meet but was not able to provide details and timing.

Raimondo is participating in ministerial meetings for APEC and the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework discussions.

Biden and Xi are expected to meet in the San Francisco Bay area on Wednesday in an effort to calm a tense relationship between the world's two largest economies.

Raimondo first mentioned the meeting with Wang, their third in person in less than six months, in an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday.

She said it was time to "ratchet down the temperature" of the U.S.-China relationship. She added that she would not "sugarcoat anything, not to pretend that this isn't a great competition, but to be direct and be honest and also to ... responsibly manage this relationship."

Her meeting with Wang follows U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's meetings last week with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, during which the two sides agreed to "intensify communication" - including with a return trip for Yellen to China next year.

Raimondo has a more difficult China portfolio than Yellen, as Commerce oversees contentious U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors and chip manufacturing equipment, and other sensitive technologies that could have military applications. She said there can be "no negotiation" over these.

During her visit to Beijing in late August, during which she met with Wang, Raimondo agreed to set up a dialogue with Chinese officials on export controls to avoid misunderstandings about the measures.

She also said during the trip that U.S. businesses had told her that China was becoming "uninvestible" for U.S. firms. She repeated the comment to CNN, citing China's new anti-espionage law, unpredictable regulations and government raids on U.S. firms.

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Blinken, new UK foreign minister discuss Israel, Ukraine and China

https://reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-usa-uk/blinken-new-uk-foreign-minister-discuss-israel-ukraine-and-china-idUSKBN3281S6

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and newly appointed British foreign minister David Cameron discussed the Israel-Hamas conflict, relations with China and help for Ukraine during a telephone call on Monday, the State Department said.

"Secretary Blinken and Lord Cameron underscored continuity in the U.S.-UK special relationship and its importance to regional and global security," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a readout of the conversation.

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