Why are bilateral statistics moving the wrong way?

In the past two years, the Trump administration has started trade wars against China, its major trade partners, and security allies. In the absence of united opposition by advanced and emerging economies, the next target will be the World Trade Organization.

At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum this week in Singapore, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made headline-grabbing statements on the China-U.S. relationship. The forum, organized by Bloomberg Media Group and in its first year, is intended as a platform for "leaders of the new global economy to solve the world's biggest challenges through coalition building" — naturally, tensions between China and the U.S. proved a focus of conversations about the world economy.

The inaugural International Import Expo is viewed as an opportunity to promote policies that could reduce China’s trade surplus, but this is not guaranteed.

Xi and Trump’s positions remain so far apart that the prospects of a breakthrough are dim.

Should U.S.-China trade tensions continue, and Japan and the PRC put effort into improving ties, American economic competitiveness with Japan for the China market could be harmed.

Will the U.S. introduce the clause excluding non-market economies into other international trade frameworks?

The US should emulate China’s behavior on Africa.

On Thursday, President Trump and President Xi spoke on the phone on topics such as trade and North Korea, indicating positive momentum towards a possible upcoming meeting between the two leaders at the G20. President Trump tweeted later that he'd had "a long and very good conversation with President Xi. . .discussions are moving along nicely," while the Chinese readout of the call reported that President Xi noted successful precedents for resolving economic and trade disputes between the two countries and pointed to next week's Shanghai import expo as evidence of China's opening up process. Bloomberg reported on Friday that President Trump may have asked key U.S. officials to begin drafting potential terms for a deal to halt mounting economic friction with China.

As Chinese stock exchanges struggle, their poor performance is a reflection of greater problems for the world’s second largest economy.