Asia-Pacific Archive

In early November, at its flagship biennial airshow in the southern city of Zhuhai, China displayed the latest accomplishments of its aerospace and defense industries. This year’s exhibition provides further evidence of China’s emergence as a major defense industrial power, one capable of equipping the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and foreign militaries with world-class military equipment. In the context of intensifying great-power competition between the United States and China, the rapidly increasing capacities of China’s defense industry are likely to play an important role in helping Beijing realize its goal of turning the PLA into a top-tier military and cementing […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Saturday night’s dinner between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, led to a 90-day trade truce and plenty of uncertainty for observers, stock traders and even Trump administration officials. No joint statement was released after the meeting, and there was little overlap in the separate readouts given by both sides. Subsequent comments from U.S. officials and Trump himself have only generated more confusion, while […]

As widely expected, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping declared a truce in their trade war over dinner in Buenos Aires this past weekend. According to the White House statement after the meeting, Xi committed to increase imports of American agricultural and energy products to reduce the bilateral trade deficit and to immediately begin negotiations over China’s unfair trade policies. In exchange, Trump agreed that he would not increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese exports as scheduled on Jan. 1, but that he could do so later if there […]