China Briefing | As US-China trade war talks enter the final stretch, is Beijing ready to tackle its structural issues?

Following the conclusion of the two-day negotiations, both sides cited “progress” and agreed to continue talks in Washington next week, with the March 1 deadline to prevent higher tariffs on imports from China less than two weeks away.

At the time of writing on Friday evening, both sides remained tight-lipped about the meetings, but large gaps are still believed to remain over the so-called structural issues holding up the trade talks – Chinese theft of US intellectual property, forced transfer of technology, weak protection of IP rights, industrial subsidies for favoured industries and equal treatment for foreign enterprises. In particular, the two sides are still sparring over how an agreement should be verified and enforced.