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Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono (2nd L) talks during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China April 15, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS
April 15, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China urged Japan on Monday to do more to follow through on its intention of seeking cooperation with China rather than competition, warning that there was still weakness in their relationship.
China and Japan have sparred frequently about their painful history, with Beijing often accusing Tokyo of not properly atoning for Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War Two.
Ties between China and Japan, the world’s second and third-largest economies, have also been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets and suspicion in China about Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution.
But they have sought to improve relations more recently, with Abe visiting Beijing in October, when both countries pledged to forge closer ties and signed a broad range of agreements including a $30 billion currency swap pact.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, told Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Beijing that the improvement in relations was in an initial phase.
“There are major opportunities, and there are also sensitivities and weaknesses,” China’s foreign ministry cited Wang as saying.
“The Japanese side has said many times that China and Japan should turn competition into coordination, and (we) hope that Japan can take even more actual steps in this regard.”
The two countries should constructively manage and control their differences through dialogue, and promote the long-term, healthy and steady development of relations, Wang added.
Japan’s foreign ministry spokesman, Takeshi Osuga, told reporters in Beijing that the talks, which included Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, had covered a wide variety of topics, including the East China Sea and North Korea.
While Japan is keen for closer economic ties with its biggest trading partner, it must manage that rapprochement without upsetting its key security ally, the United States.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to visit Japan this year, as it is the host nation for the G20 summit.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Source: OANN
Chinese staffers adjust U.S. and Chinese flags before the opening session of trade negotiations between U.S. and Chinese trade representatives at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
April 15, 2019
By Alexandra Alper, Chris Prentice and Michael Martina
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a trade deal after strong resistance from Beijing, according to two sources briefed on discussions, marking a retreat on a core U.S. objective for the trade talks.
The world’s two biggest economies are nine months into a trade war that has cost billions of dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods to press demands for an end to policies – including industrial subsidies – that Washington says hurt U.S. companies competing with Chinese firms. China responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods.
The issue of industrial subsidies is thorny because they are intertwined with the Chinese government’s industrial policy. Beijing grants subsidies and tax breaks to state-owned firms and to sectors seen as strategic for long-term development. Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened the state’s role in parts of the economy.
In the push to secure a deal in the next month or so, U.S. negotiators have become resigned to securing less than they would like on curbing those subsidies and are focused instead on other areas where they consider demands are more achievable, the sources said.
Those include ending forced technology transfers, improving intellectual property protection and widening access to China’s markets, the sources said. China has already given ground on those issues.
“It’s not that there won’t be some language on it, but it is not going to be very detailed or specific,” one source familiar with the talks said in reference to the subsidies issue.
A representative for the White House referred Reuters to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, which did not respond to a request for comment.
“If U.S. negotiators define success as changing the way China’s economy operates, that will never happen,” said the other source with knowledge of the trade talks.
“A deal that makes Xi look weak is not a worthwhile deal for Xi. Whatever deal we get, it’s going to be better than what we’ve had, and it’s not going to be sufficient for some people. But that’s politics,” that source said.
China pledged earlier this year to end market-distorting subsidies for its domestic industries but offered no details on how it would achieve that goal, three people familiar with the trade talks told Reuters in February.
MIXED MESSAGES
One of the key sticking points in the negotiations is the removal of the $250 billion in U.S. tariffs. It is broadly expected in the trade community that U.S. negotiators want to keep some tariffs on Chinese goods, which Washington sees as retaliation for the years of damage done to its economy by Beijing’s unfair trade practices.
The role of the state firms may benefit the United States in another part of the trade deal. The Trump administration wants China to make big-ticket purchases of over a trillion dollars of U.S. goods in the next six years to reduce its trade surplus. The companies likely to make the purchases are the state-run firms, both sources said.
“The purchasing, for example, reinforces the role of the state sector because the purchasing is all being done through state enterprises,” one of the sources said.
Another point of contention between the two countries, telecommunications, may drive China to increase the state’s role rather than reduce it, the source said.
Pressure from the United States on allies to reduce cooperation with Chinese telecommunications champions such as Huawei Technologies could push the government into raising state support to develop technology at home.
DECADES OF FRICTION
Subsidies and tax breaks have been a source of friction between the two countries for years.
Washington says Beijing has failed to comply with its World Trade Organization obligations on subsidies that affect both imports and exports.
China has taken steps to address some U.S. concerns in cases brought before the WTO. It has also begun to publicly downplay its push to dominate the future of high-tech industries under its “Made in China 2025” policy, although few expect it to jettison those ambitions.
But the USTR complains of a catalog of other subsidies and supports, including preferential access to capital and land.
The United States says China has failed to disclose subsidies as required by the WTO. Washington has detailed more than 500 different subsidies it says China applies in notifications to the WTO.
The scope of China’s local government subsidy programs is largely unknown, and even the Chinese negotiators have said in recent discussions they do not know the details of all those programs.
“China continues to shield massive sub-central government subsidies from the scrutiny of WTO members,” the USTR said in a February 2019 report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Chris Prentice in Washington and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Chris Sanders and Peter Cooney)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A man and a child ride a motorcycle on a plaza with a statue featuring the Chinese Communist Party emblem, in Shazhou village, Rucheng county, Hunan province, China December 3, 2018. REUTERS/Shu Zhang/File Photo
April 12, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China aims to send millions of students to work as volunteers in rural communities and set up entrepreneur organizations, as it renews a push to narrow a yawning gap between rural and urban regions, an official document showed.
The drive reflects the ruling Communist Party’s desire to raise the status of rural areas, where 577 million people live or which they call home, to avert a risk of social unrest, boost consumption and investment, and rein in growth of big cities.
Productivity has slumped in China’s greying countryside, mostly dominated by small farmholdings and low-end industries, and which has suffered a brain drain so severe that President Xi Jinping has called for talent to return to the countryside.
Such a move would once have been unthinkable for a nation that considers urbanization a ticket to prosperity.
In a March 22 document, the Communist Youth League (CYL) said it aimed to organize more than 10 million volunteering trips by 2022 for students pursuing technical degrees, seeking to deepen a “rural rejuvenation” drive christened by Xi.
Students taking such trips, mostly during summer holidays, will spread knowledge on topics from science to finance and environment protection, besides joining in cultural activities and helping in educational and medical services, it added.
It is unclear, however, what incentives the government will offer to attract students, or if the trips will be mandatory.
The League also plans to help 100,000 young migrant workers return to rural hometowns to work or start businesses, aiming for more than 80 percent of rural counties to set up a “youth entrepreneur organization” by 2022, it added.
Scepticism about the possible effectiveness of such policies has grown online, since rural earnings remain low and millennials living in cities are disconnected from their families’ roots in the countryside.
Some critics online have compared the plan to Chairman Mao Zedong’s program of more than five decades ago that effectively exiled millions of fresh high school graduates from the cities to remote areas to be “re-educated”, rooting out what he saw as bourgeois thinking.
“I thought it’s a document from the 1960s,” wrote Zhenglixiaodao, a user on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.
(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Ryan Woo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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FILE PHOTO: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attends talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/Pool
April 6, 2019
By Syed Raza Hassan and Sankalp Phartiyal
KARACHI, Pakistan/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “whipping up war hysteria” over claims that India shot down a Pakistani F-16 during a standoff in February, saying the truth is always the best policy.
U.S.-based Foreign Policy magazine, citing U.S. officials, said all of Pakistan’s F-16 combat jets had been accounted for, contradicting an Indian air force assessment that it had shot down one of the jets.
“The truth always prevails and is always the best policy,” Khan said in a Tweet. “BJP’s attempt to win elections through whipping up war hysteria and false claims of downing a Pak F 16 has backfired with US Defense officials also confirming that no F16 was missing from Pakistan’s fleet.”
Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan engaged in an aerial battle over the disputed region of Kashmir a day after Indian jets crossed over into Pakistan to attack a suspected camp of anti-India militants.
An Indian jet was brought down during the fight and its pilot captured when he ejected on the Pakistani side of the border. He was later released.
India said it too had shot down a Pakistani aircraft and the air force displayed pieces of a missile that it said had been fired by a Pakistani F-16 before it went down.
Foreign Policy said in a report published on Thursday two U.S. defense officials with direct knowledge of the matter said U.S. personnel had done a count of Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing.
Details of the India-Pakistan air engagement have not been fully provided by either side. If the U.S. report turns out to be true, it would be a further blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had said that India had taught Pakistan a lesson, ahead of elections next week.
The BJP is campaigning on a platform of tough national security, especially with regard to arch foe Pakistan. New Delhi blames Pakistan for stoking a 30-year revolt in Muslim-majority Kashmir but Islamabad denies any involvement.
The success of Indian air strikes on a camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group in northwestern Pakistan has also been thrown into doubt after satellite images showed little sign of damage.
High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters last month showed that a religious school run by Jaish appeared to be still standing days after India said its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants.
Pakistan closed its airspace amid the standoff but most commercial air traffic has since resumed and major airports have opened.
Pakistan offered to open one air route on Friday, an Indian government official said, without specifying details and declining to be named as the matter was not public.
An Air India official said on condition of anonymity that Pakistan has opened one of its 11 air routes, from the southern side, adding that the carrier began operations via this route on Friday.
“Pakistan has opened one air route over India on April 4th, it is a north-west bound route,” Mujtaba Baig, spokesman for Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority, told Reuters on Saturday.
An email sent to the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation was not immediately answered. Air India did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: People shop at Macy’s Department store in New York City, U.S., March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
April 5, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Following are the five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.
1/ THE I WORD
As the U.S. yield curve makes up its mind whether to invert or not, investors seeking reassurance that we are in a Goldilocks era of non-inflationary growth will get to scour two monthly price gauges this week.
On Wednesday, the Labor Department is expected to report that its March Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent on the month and 1.8 percent over the year – a reading that would reinforce subdued underlying inflation and validate the Fed’s almost about-face after four hikes last year.
CPI – a proxy for overall inflation that factors into cost of living adjustments for Social Security – rose 1.5 percent year to February, the smallest increase since September 2016. The latest reading of the Fed’s favorite inflation measure rose 1.8 percent in the year to January, below its 2 percent target.
Fed officials have started alluding to a new economic reality of slowish growth and little upward price pressure. Even as wages creep higher, improved productivity curbs firms’ costs.
Minutes of the March Fed policy meeting, to be released on Wednesday, will be cross checked for references to the new “patient” approach and “muted” inflation. The March producer price index, a glimpse of pipeline price pressures, is scheduled for Thursday.
For a graphic on U.S. Core CPI and PCE, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CYPJ1h
2/ MARIO TO THE RESCUE
Just a month since the European Central Bank put plans to normalize policy on hold and delayed a rate hike into 2020, further signs of weakness in the economy and a whiff of panic among investors puts the spotlight back on the central bank.
A woeful set of German industrial orders data this week pushed German Bund yields back into negative territory and though a U.S.-China trade deal could be in sight, it looks like difficult times ahead for Europe.
No policy changes are expected at Wednesday’s ECB meeting, especially since some board members are traveling to Washington for the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings.
But talk of tiered rates to ease pressure on banks, global recession fears, Brexit, and a sense of panic that has pushed 10-year German bond yields back below zero percent, all suggest ECB chief Mario Draghi’s news conference may prove lively.
Investors will also keep an eye out for further details on cheap loans known as the targeted long-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) — one of the few policy tools left in the kit after the end of QE — and what the ECB will do to incentivize banks to take it up.
For a graphic on German Bund yields hover around zero, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HYkJ5L
3/ WATCH YOUR CHINA
An unexpected recovery in China factory activity surveys offered investors a glimmer of hope the stimulus injected in one of the world’s major growth engines may be yielding results.
Trade data due out on Friday could provide the next clue that could help investors regain confidence as they gauge whether the slowdown is bottoming out.
That said, the recovery remains feeble and analysts believe it is still highly-dependent on how the trade negotiations with Washington go.
Markets took some hope from an announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday that Washington and Beijing could announce a trade deal within four weeks while Chinese President Xi Jinping was reported as saying progress was being made. But Trump also warned Beijing it would be difficult to allow trade to continue without a pact.
Many believe the Chinese economy may still need more stimulus either way. Looking at the pattern of past decisions by the People’s Bank of China, a decision to cut bank reserve requirements may be announced by mid-April, economists say.
For a graphic on China reserve requirement ratios and the yuan, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CXO8c7
4/ THE LONG GOODBYE
After British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request to the European Council to delay Brexit until up to June 30, focus now shifts to a meeting next week where EU leaders will discuss a proposal to offer Britain a flexible extension of up to a year.
After the British parliament failed to approve a withdrawal agreement, May started talks this week with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the hope of breaking the Brexit deadlock, but markets are not getting too excited about it.
While one-month risk reversals for the pound, a gauge of demand for the British currency in the derivatives market, have rebounded from a 2-1/2 year low hit last month, they still remained far below levels seen earlier this year, indicating overall sentiment remained bearish.
Implied volatility measures also indicated caution with one-month gauges for the pound remaining elevated despite a dip this week compared to the euro and the Japanese yen.
For a graphic on GBP implied vol curve, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2WNbJUi
5/ IS IT SPRING YET?
It is that time of year, when central bank governors, finance ministers, policy makers and investors from around the globe gather in Washington for the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. A Group of 20 central bankers and finance ministers meeting takes place on the sidelines.
There is no shortage of topics to talk about. Concerns over the health of the global economy amid trade wars and other political uncertainties such as Brexit have sent jitters through markets.
Major central banks’ efforts to navigate their way back to normal after years of low interest rates and easy money following the 2008 financial crisis have not been without bumps. Central bank independence has been questioned in many countries.
Speaking in the run up to the gathering of the great and good of policy making and finance, IMF chief Christine Lagarde has called the outlook for growth “precarious” and warned that years of high public debt and low interest rates over the past decade have left many countries with limited room to act when the next downturn arrives.
For a graphic on IMF April Outlook, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2WL1ekz
(Reporting by Karin Strohecker, Abhinav Ramnarayan and Saikat Chatterjee in London, Alden Bentley in New York and Marius Zaharia in Hong Kong; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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FILE PHOTO: A man looks on in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
April 5, 2019
By Wayne Cole
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian share markets consolidated weekly gains on Friday as Sino-U.S. talks dragged on with no concrete conclusions, while caution ahead of U.S. payrolls and a holiday in China and Hong Kong dampened volatility.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed and near its highest since the end of August. It was still up 1.9 percent for the week and 13 percent for the year so far.
Japan’s Nikkei added 0.1 percent, to be 2.6 percent firmer for the week. E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 edged up 0.04 percent.
“Share markets have run hard and fast from their December lows and are vulnerable to a short-term pullback,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital.
“But valuations are okay, global growth is expected to improve into the second half of the year, monetary and fiscal policy has become more supportive of markets and the trade war threat is receding.”
Xinhua reported Chinese President Xi Jinping had said progress was being made and called for an early conclusion of negotiations.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday a deal could be announced in about four weeks, but warned it would be difficult to let China trade with the United States if remaining issues were not resolved.
Investors are also waiting on the U.S. payrolls report which is forecast to bounce back by 180,000 in March, following February’s distorted 20,000 rise. One focus will be hourly earnings which climbed to 3.4 percent in February, the fastest pace since April 2009.
Hopes for a solid number were boosted by data on jobless claims which fell to a 49-year low last week, pointing to sustained labor market strength.
The Dow ended Thursday up 0.64 percent, while the S&P 500 gained 0.21 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 0.05 percent. The S&P 500 reached its highest level since Oct. 9 and is only 1.75 percent below its all-time closing high.
YEN EASING
In currencies, the progress on trade was enough to keep the safe-haven yen under pressure and lift the dollar to its highest in three weeks at 111.79. The next chart stops were 111.89 and the March peak around 112.12.
Against a basket of currencies the dollar had bounced back to 97.312, from Wednesday’s low of 96.962.
Reuters reported Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell its oil in currencies other than the dollar if Washington passes a bill exposing OPEC members to U.S. antitrust lawsuits, three sources familiar with Saudi energy policy said.
The euro was flat at $1.1227 having dipped overnight in the wake of poor German data. Industrial orders there fell by the most in more than two years in February as foreign demand slumped, another sign that Europe’s largest economy had a weak start to the year.
Sterling was stalled at $1.3077 as markets awaited some clarity on where Brexit was heading.
Pro-Brexit lawmakers in Britain’s upper house of parliament tried on Thursday to thwart the approval of a new law that would force Prime Minister Theresa May to seek a delay to prevent a disorderly EU exit on April 12 without a deal.
A source close to negotiations on the timetable for the bill said they expected it to be finalised on Monday.
In commodity markets, spot gold steadied at $1,291.61 per ounce after touching a near 10-week low overnight.
Brent oil had briefly touched $70 a barrel for the first time since November on Thursday as expectations of tight global supply outweighed pressure from rising U.S. production. [O/R}
Brent crude futures were off 15 cents at $69.25, while U.S. crude rose 3 cents to $62.13 a barrel.
(Editing by Sam Holmes)
Source: OANN
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. and China are “rounding the turn” in a lengthy negotiation over trade and predicted that “something monumental” and great for both countries could be announced in a matter of weeks.
“We are rounding the turn. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said during an Oval Office appearance with both countries’ negotiating teams. “We have a ways to go but not very far.”
Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top trade negotiator, agreed, telling Trump that “because of your direct involvement, we do have great progress.”
China and the U.S. are working to end a standoff that has shaken financial markets and darkened the outlook for the world economy.
U.S. and Chinese negotiators on Wednesday began their ninth round of talks to resolve the dispute over American allegations that Beijing is using predatory tactics, including cybertheft, in a campaign to challenge U.S. technological dominance. China has denied the allegations.
Trump has slapped tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese products. In retaliation, China has targeted $110 billion in American imports.
The president said Thursday that he would discuss the future of tariffs the U.S. has imposed on China with Liu.
The president also said he still wants to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “If we have a deal, then we’re going to have a summit,” Trump said.
Trump said he appreciated a “beautiful letter” he received from Xi, but he did not disclose its contents.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping arrive for a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
April 4, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is not expected to announce a date on Thursday for a meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade, an administration official said, denying a report by the Wall Street Journal.
“The White House is not expected to announce a date for a meeting,” the official said.
Trump is scheduled to meet with China’s top trade negotiator, Liu He, at 4:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) at the White House after another day of talks between top trade officials from both countries.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason)
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U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping arrive for a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
April 4, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce a date for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed administration official.
Trump is scheduled to meet with China’s top trade negotiator, Liu He, at 4:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) at the White House.
(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by David Alexander)
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FILE PHOTO: Workers inspect railway tracks, which serve as a part of the Belt and Road freight rail route linking Chongqing to Duisburg, at the Dazhou railway station in Sichuan province, China March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Ben Blanchard and Robin Emmott
BEIJING/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – China is struggling to ease worries about President Xi Jinping’s signature plan to build a new Silk Road as it readies for a major summit in late April, especially among Western nations wary about debt, transparency and Chinese influence.
While China gained a major victory by convincing Italy to become the first G7 nation to formally sign on to the plan last month during Xi’s visit to Rome, others in the West have been less keen to jump onboard, though many have kept an open mind.
The Belt and Road Initiative, as it is formally called, is aimed at building a vast network of infrastructure connecting China to Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and beyond, much like the ancient Silk Road.
Following the first Belt and Road summit two years ago, in a luxuriously appointed convention center in hills north of Beijing, the second one is scheduled for the same location in late April. China is billing it as the country’s most important diplomatic event of the year.
The country’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would come, and also took a swipe at “prejudiced” critics of the program who seek to besmirch it with concerns like “debt traps”.
“The Belt and Road is open, inclusive and transparent. It does not play little geopolitical games,” Yang, who runs the ruling Communist Party’s foreign affairs committee, told the official People’s Daily.
The United States, locked in a bitter trade war with China, has been a particular critic of the Belt and Road, calling it an “infrastructure vanity project” when Italy signed on.
Jonathan Cohen, acting permanent representative of the United States at the United Nations, last month slammed China’s attempt to get Belt and Road language into a resolution on Afghanistan, saying it had “known problems with corruption, debt distress, environmental damage, and lack of transparency”.
Wu Haitao, chargé d’affaires of China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said the rebuke was “contrary to the facts and fraught with prejudice”.
In 2017, the United States sent White House National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Matt Pottinger to the summit. This time, Washington said it will not dispatch high-level officials due to its concerns about the project.
Lower-level staffers, possibly from the U.S. embassy in Beijing, might go to the summit to observe and take notes, sources familiar with the matter said, though a final decision has yet to be made.
China says it always welcomes “like-minded countries” to take part in the project.
It has not disclosed a full list of the leaders planning to attend the event. But some of Beijing’s closest friends have confirmed they will go, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.
EU WARINESS
The European Union, China’s largest trading partner, has also been in a bind about how to respond.
Last week, Europe’s top leaders told Xi they wanted a fairer trading relationship with China, signaling an openness to engage with the project if it meant more access to the Chinese market.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at the EU summit in March, grumbled about Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s decision to join the project, although she said Germany will play in active role in the Belt and Road and called for reciprocity.
Conte is due to attend the summit. Rome says signing onto the Belt and Road will bring much-needed investment and boost trade and has pointed to the fact that a dozen EU countries have already signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with China, including Hungary, Poland, Greece and Portugal.
SAFEGUARDING INTERESTS
The EU last year proposed its own infrastructure scheme, but it has denied it is trying to counter China’s ambitions.
“For China it is a question of power projection. China is corrupting what should be a level playing field by offering loans that send country debts soaring and create a culture of economic dependency on Beijing,” one EU official said.
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, a Merkel confidant, is attending the summit, along with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, with Altmaier saying they wanted to “safeguard European interests in co-operation with China there”.
Several EU officials said the European Commission was still looking at who to send as a replacement for Vice President Jyrki Katainen, who attended 2017’s Belt and Road summit and has cited a calendar clash with the EU-Japan summit for not being able to go this time.
China has been on a push to show that the Belt and Road remains popular, despite cooling enthusiasm from governments including in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Maldives, where new administrations are wary of deals struck with China by their predecessors.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, who ranks below Yang, last month touted the success of the $57-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a major Belt and Road scheme.
Wang said after meeting Pakistan’s foreign minister that less than 20 percent of funding for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor came from Chinese loans, with the rest made up of direct Chinese investment and free grants.
The corridor focuses on the interests of ordinary people, Wang said, citing as an example women truck drivers trained to work at a coal mine connected to the project, which he described as a “touching story”.
Wang told reporters at March’s annual meeting of parliament that the Belt and Road was about high quality, sustainable, green development.
“As President Xi has said, the Belt and Road initiative comes from China, but the achievements belong to the world,” Wang said.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing, Andreas Rinke and Michael Nienaber in Berlin, Richard Lough in Paris, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; editing by Neil Fullick)
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