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Chinese companies have started to absorb the cost of US tariffs, cutting prices on exports to the United States about a year into the trade war, according to a new study.The research, by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), indicates that Chinese exporters held off on price cuts until the second quarter of this year, when they reduced prices of tariff-hit goods to the US by an average of 8 per cent.In addition to greater desperation among Chinese companies to cling to market share, the research suggests that, until those cuts, the costs of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs were being passed onto the US consumer, the other big loser of the trade war.The study bolsters suggestions that Chinese manufacturers have been struggling to break even, with China’s producer price index ” which measures the prices that owners can charge at the factory gate ” falling for the past three months after stagnating in June.The report also highlighted a 65 per cent drop ” a loss of almost US$10 billion ” in US imports of Chinese office machinery in the first half of 2019.US buyers found alternatives for 45 per cent of that shortfall, with Taiwan being the major beneficiary, but the US$5.5 billion in lost trade suggests that these goods are not always easily replaced.Overall, American buyers found replacements for about two-thirds of the US$35 billion in lost US imports from mainland China, with Taiwan often the new supplier of choice, followed by Mexico, the European Union, Vietnam and Japan.But the gap points to full warehouses in the US due to frantic bursts of front-loading, lower demand in the US and the failure of any economy ” or combination of economies ” to replace China’s giant export engine.The report said that China’s ability to hold on to 75 per cent of its US market share for goods subject to tariffs also suggested residual strength among exporting companies there. Many US buyers had reluctantly sought replacement suppliers and contract manufacturers, but as the tariff war continued, more would be forced to find alternatives, it said.There is pressure in China and the United States for a deal to ease the year-long trade war.According to former White House trade adviser Clete Willems, the Trump administration is aware that US tariffs planned for December 15 would cause more harm to the US consumer than previous duties because they target the sort of consumer goods ” iPhones, laptops, gaming consoles ” that US officials previously ring-fenced for fear of hitting voters in the pocket.Meanwhile, China, the world’s second-biggest economy, grew at 6 per cent in the third quarter, its slowest pace on record. Exports have also fallen for two months in a row, while imports have dropped every month this year except in April.While much has been made of the role the economy will play in the US presidential election next year, China-watchers also said that a weak economy and the trade war were piling the pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping.”He is unable to turn the economy around and he is unable to handle the tough challenge from Trump,” Willy Lam Wo-lap, a veteran political scientist, said in Hong Kong on Tuesday. “He may be unable to stop the trade dispute from turning into a full-blown cold war.”Lam said that these sorts of “black swan events” combined with the ongoing crisis in Hong Kong “taint” Xi’s authority among China’s civil society, even if there is no real challenge now to his tight grip on power.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
November 6, 2019Read More
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his “sincere condolences” on Tuesday to Uygur individuals whose activism ” including meetings with US officials ” has reportedly led to reprisals against their relatives in China.The US government was “deeply troubled” by accounts that the Chinese government had “harassed, imprisoned or arbitrarily detained” Uygur Muslim activists and survivors of Xinjiang internment camps who had made their stories public, Pompeo, Washington’s top diplomat, said in a statement.The United Nations estimates that around one million Uygurs and people from other largely Muslim minority groups have been swept up in China’s mass internment programme in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.Beijing calls the camps vocational training centres, a claim that has jarred with the testimonies of former detainees and even regional authorities’ own documents, which refer to coercive internment and political indoctrination.Since the mass internment programme began in early 2017, relatives of those believed to have been detained have found themselves caught between the desire to campaign for their family members and the concern that doing so could compound their predicament.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US was “deeply troubled” over reports of reprisals against the families of Uygur activists who had publicised events in Xinjiang. Photo: AP alt=US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US was “deeply troubled” over reports of reprisals against the families of Uygur activists who had publicised events in Xinjiang. Photo: APState Department officials have met with a number of those individuals both publicly and privately, and have even consulted them when considering sanctions against Chinese officials over the internment camps.In some cases, Pompeo said on Tuesday, “abuses” against the relatives of Uygur activists had occurred soon after senior State Department officials had met with the activists.In September, the US invited a former detainee, Zumrat Dawut, to address government representatives from over 30 countries at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.Dawut recently learned that her father, who had been reportedly detained and interrogated multiple times by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang in recent years, “recently passed away under unknown circumstances”, according to Pompeo.Others who had been “directly impacted by the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of repression”, he said, included Ferkat Jawdat and Arfat Erkin, two US-based activists who met with Pompeo in March.In a post on Twitter, Jawdat said his aunt and uncle were sent to prison to serve eight- and nine-year sentences in the days following the March meeting.As with many similar events and public remarks made by US officials, the March meeting drew a stern response from Beijing, which accused Washington of “using Xinjiang-related affairs as tools to interfere in China’s internal affairs”.After I met with @SecPompeo, China stepped out their game and sent my aunt and her husband to the prison in another city for 8 & 9 years. I heard they also threatened my other relatives.” Ferkat Jawdat (@ferkat_jawdat) April 3, 2019The camps have driven a wedge through the international community, with a group of mainly European countries siding with the US in castigating Beijing over its measures in the region. Another clique of countries, including Russia, Belarus and a number of Middle Eastern and African nations, has sided with Beijing.The US recently became the first country to take punitive measures against China over its actions in Xinjiang. In October, the departments of State and Commerce unveiled a suite of sanctions targeting Chinese companies, government entities and officials for their alleged involvement in Beijing’s “campaign of repression in Xinjiang”.In his Tuesday statement, Pompeo called on Beijing to “cease all harassment of Uygurs living outside of China, to release all those arbitrarily detained, and to allow families to communicate freely without repercussions”.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Boris Johnson’s bid for re-election as British prime minister was rocked by a cabinet resignation on the day the Conservative leader launched his campaign.Wel…
November 6, 2019Read More
U.N. nuclear inspectors are on the ground in Iran and will report back on relevant activities, an International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman said on Wednesday after Iran said it injected uranium gas into centrifuges at its Fordow site. Agency inspec…
November 6, 2019Read More
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election campaign launch was marred by the resignation of one of his ministers, a gaffe about the victims of a deadly tower blaze and a doctored video of an opponent released by his party. At the start of the cam…
November 6, 2019Read More
Iran has started to inject uranium gas into centrifuges at its underground Fordow nuclear facility, state TV reported on Wednesday, further distancing itself from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that curbed its atomic work. The dea…
November 6, 2019Read More
Once a legal counsel for Senator Mitch McConnell, he became the first Republican to be elected to the office in more than 70 years.
November 6, 2019Read More
Anti-government protesters in Iraq stormed a bridge Wednesday in central Baghdad, where security forces pushed them back with batons and tear gas, wounding dozens. A medic was killed while aiding demonstrators. The military called on the protesters t…
November 6, 2019Read More
A magnitude 5 earthquake has struck southern Iran. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center says the 5.5 magnitude quake struck at 11:10 a.m. on Wednesday in Iran, some 125 kilometers — or about 77 miles — west of the port city of Bandar Abbas….
November 6, 2019Read More
Two TDOT contractors killed, trooper injured in I-40 wreck WREG NewsChannel 3
November 6, 2019Read More
2 TDOT contractors killed in Arlington crash identified; worker, trooper injured Commercial Appeal
November 6, 2019Read More
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