The moves come just two weeks before the two sides were set to meet for a first round of negotiating on ways to ‘re-balance’ their trade relationship and was announced on the day President Xi was set to attend a ceremony marking 20 years of China/Hong Kong partial reunification.
June 30, 2017
‘Less than 100 days after Donald Trump hosted Xi Jinping at his Florida resort and predicted that the two presidents were “going to have a very, very great relationship”, the Mar-a-Lago honeymoon is over. On Thursday the US president threatened to impose sanctions on a Chinese bank for its alleged dealings with North Korea and confirmed a new arms sale package for Taiwan.
Both measures were guaranteed to upset Mr Xi. Beijing has previously expressed its opposition to targeted sanctions against Chinese companies, which it sees as “long-arm jurisdiction”, and has for some time viewed Taiwan as a “renegade province”. But the timing, in Beijing’s eyes, heaps insult upon injury.’