Chinas Truce With Trump Buys It Valuable Time

For China and its top leader, Xi Jinping, the biggest prize from a summit in Washington, notably free from confrontation, may be simple: time.Time to cope with a housing market crash that has wiped away the savings of tens of millions of Chinese families.Time to deal with local governments running short of money as land-use revenue collapses.

Time to make China even less vulnerable to economic pressure from the United States and other industrialized countries.And perhaps most consequentially, time to prepare for the once-in-five-years Communist Party national congress next autumn, which will choose a new slate of top leaders to work under Mr.Xi.“By trying to stabilize relations with the U.S., China can better concentrate on its own priorities,” said Wu Xinbo, a leading American studies scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai.When President Trump returned to office last year, Beijing had little reason to expect such breathing room.Mr.

Trump had campaigned on imposing very steep tariffs on imports from China as part of an effort to rebuild America’s industrial base.Three months after taking office, he briefly raised tariffs to 145 percent, while his administration imposed stringent new restrictions on technology trade with China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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