Financial Time reported that a senior Chinese diplomat said Beijing wanted to avoid a trade war with the US and sought to present China as a defender of the global trading system, just a day after Donald Trump threatened Europe with additional sanctions beyond last week's punitive taxes on imported steel and aluminium. "There are more common interests [between China and the US] than differences so co-operation is the only option for both countries," said Zhang Yesui, vice-foreign minister, on Sunday ahead of the annual session of China's rubber-stamp parliament. "China does not want a trade war with the US." "Through its development, China has created many opportunities for the global economy and made a great contribution to international trade," added Mr Zhang, a former ambassador to the US. Rising trade friction with the US will be one of the biggest talking points at the National People's Congress, which opens on Monday with Premier Li Keqiang's annual "work report" and runs until March 20. Last week President Xi Jinping dispatched Liu He, his top economic adviser, to Washington in an effort to head off a bilateral trade war. While Mr Trump announced 25 and 10 per cent tariffs on imported steel and aluminium on the same day that Mr Liu met with senior administration officials, China's reaction was muted.

The New York Times reports that for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, a United States aircraft carrier is scheduled to make a port call in Vietnam on Monday, signaling how China's rise is bringing together former foes in a significant shift in the region's geopolitical landscape. The vessel, the Carl Vinson, will anchor off Danang, the central Vietnam port city that served as a major staging post for the American war effort in the country. "It's a pretty big and historic step, since a carrier has not been here for 40 years," said Rear Adm. John V. Fuller, the commander of the Carl Vinson strike group, whose father served in Vietnam. "We hope to continue the same issue that we've always had," he said, "and that's to promote security, stability and prosperity in the region." The arrival of the Carl Vinson strike group's 5,500 sailors will mark the first time such a large contingent of American military personnel has landed on Vietnamese soil since the last of the United States troops withdrew in 1975. "Hanoi's agreement to the aircraft carrier visit demonstrates Vietnam's anxiety about what China will do next in the South China Sea," said Murray Hiebert, senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The U.S. is virtually the last man standing to which Hanoi can look for support in the South China Sea dispute."