The Financial Times reported that Pakistan plans to review or renegotiate agreements reached under China's Belt and Road Initiative, joining a growing list of countries questioning the terms of their involvement in Beijing's showpiece infrastructure investment plan. Pakistani ministers and advisers say the country's new government will review BRI investments and renegotiate a trade agreement signed more than a decade ago that it says unfairly benefits Chinese companies. The projects concerned are part of the $62bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor plan — by far the largest and most ambitious part of the BRI, which seeks to connect Asia and Europe along the ancient silk road. They include a huge expansion of the Gwadar port on Pakistan's south coast, as well as road and rail links and $30bn worth of power plants. "The previous government did a bad job negotiating with China on CPEC — they didn't do their homework correctly and didn't negotiate correctly so they gave away a lot," Abdul Razak Dawood, the Pakistani member of cabinet responsible for commerce, textiles, industry and investment, told the Financial Times...Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, who visited Islamabad at the weekend, indicated that Beijing could be open to renegotiating its 2006 trade deal with Pakistan. "CPEC has not inflicted a debt burden on Pakistan," he told reporters. "When these projects get completed and enter into operation, they will unleash huge economic benefits." But Islamabad's second thoughts follow other recent setbacks for BRI, which is seen by many as a bid by China's President Xi Jinping to extend Beijing's influence throughout the world. Governments in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and elsewhere have already expressed reservations over the onerous terms of Chinese BRI lending and investment.

The Financial Times reported that the Chinese government is inviting Wall Street's top bankers to a hastily arranged meeting in Beijing as President Donald Trump threatens to impose punitive tariffs on all Chinese exports to the US. According to three people briefed on the initiative, Chinese Communist party officials have invited the heads of America's leading financial institutions to attend a "China-US Financial Roundtable" in Beijing on September 16, followed by a meeting with Wang Qishan, vice-president of China. Chinese officials hope the new group, which will be jointly chaired by Zhou Xiaochuan, a former Chinese central bank governor, and John Thornton, the former Goldman Sachs executive who now chairs mining group Barrick Gold, will meet every six months to discuss Sino-US relations and advise the Chinese government on financial and economic reforms. "Those of us in the financial industries of both countries realise that we have an obligation to help improve US-China relations," said one person involved in the roundtable. "This relationship is too important to be wrecked by a few people." US executives invited to attend next week's event include Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone chairman, along with the heads of Citigroup, Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson. The invitations were sent by Fang Xinghai, a vice-chairman at China's securities regulator and a former aide to vice-premier Liu He, who has been leading Beijing's efforts to avoid an all-out trade war with the US. Chinese representatives will include Yi Gang, Mr Zhou's successor at the People's Bank of China; banking and insurance regulator Guo Shuqing; and Liao Min, a finance vice-minister who is also Mr Liu's closest aide.