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Green activists dumped horse manure and staged a mock hanging outside the venue of a U.N. climate summit in Madrid on Saturday, airing their frustration at the failure of world leaders to take meaningful action against global warming.
Led by grass-roots group Extinction Rebellion, the actions were timed to coincide with the closing of the COP25 summit, where negotiators have been unable to agree on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
“Just like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, this COP’s fiddling of carbon accounting and negotiating of Article 6 is not commensurate to the planetary emergency we face,” Extinction Rebellion said in a statement.
Twelve members of the group stood on melting blocks of ice, nooses drawn tight around their necks to symbolize the 12 months remaining until the next summit, when the Paris deal enters a make-or-break implementation phase.
Attached to the pile of manure was a short message to leaders saying, “The horses— stops here.”
In contrast to a protest held last weekend, in which hundreds of demonstrators blocked one of Madrid’s central shopping streets for a mass disco dance, the mood at the gathering was subdued.
‘Nothing has really changed’
“Even if they reach an agreement, it’s still not enough. This is the 25th COP they’ve had and nothing has really changed,” protester Emma Deane told Reuters from her perch atop an ice block, holding her young daughter in her arms. “She’s going to grow up in a world where there’s no food on the shelves, and that breaks my heart.”
Still, Extinction Rebellion spokesman Ronan McNern stressed the importance of humor in the face of the climate crisis.
“Out of s— comes the best roses. We hope that the international community comes together to create a beautiful future,” McNern said.
The Xinjiang regional government in China’s far west is deleting data, destroying documents, tightening controls on information and holding high-level meetings in response to leaks of classified papers on its mass detention camps for Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities, according to four people in contact with government employees there.
Top officials deliberated about how to respond to the leaks in meetings at the Chinese Communist Party’s regional headquarters in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, some of the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of retribution against themselves, family members and the government workers.
The meetings began days after The New York Times published last month a cache of internal speeches on Xinjiang by top leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. They continued after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists worked with news organizations around the world, including The Associated Press, to publish secret guidelines for operating detention centers and instructions on how to use technology to target people.
The Chinese government has long struggled with its 11 million-strong Uighur population, an ethnic Turkic minority native to Xinjiang, and in recent years has detained 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities in the camps.
FILE – Classified Chinese government documents leaked to news organizations are displayed in New York, Nov. 22, 2019. Beijing has detained more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities for what it calls voluntary job training.
Xinjiang officials and the Chinese Foreign Ministry have not directly denied the authenticity of the documents, though Urumqi Communist Party chief Xu Hairong called reports on the leaks “malicious smears and distortions.”
The Xinjiang government did not respond to a fax for comment on the arrests, the tightened restrictions on information and other measures responding to the leaks. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not have an immediate comment.
Xinjiang’s government had already mandated stricter controls on information in October, before the news reports, according to three of the people, all Uighurs outside Xinjiang.
They include orders for community-level officials to burn paper forms containing sensitive personal details on residents in their area, such as their detention status, and for various state offices to throw away computers, tighten management of classified information and ensure all information related to the camps is now stored on databases disconnected from the internet in special, restricted-access rooms to bar hackers, the Uighurs said.
“They became much more serious about the transfer of information,” one said.
Publication of the classified documents prompted the central government in Beijing to put more pressure on Xinjiang officials, several of the Uighurs said.
Tighter grip
Restrictions on information appear to be tightening further. Some university teachers and district-level workers in Urumqi have been ordered to clean out sensitive data on their computers, phones and cloud storage, and to delete work-related social media groups, according to one Uighur with direct knowledge of the situation.
In other cases, the state appears to be confiscating evidence of detentions. Another Uighur who had been detained in Xinjiang years before said his ex-wife called him two weeks ago and begged him to send his release papers to her, saying eight officers had come to her home to search for the papers, then threatened that she’d be jailed for life if she couldn’t produce the papers.
“It’s an old matter, and they’ve know I’ve been abroad for a long time,” he said. “The fact that they suddenly want this now must mean the pressure on them is very high.”
Some government workers have been rounded up as the state investigates the source of the leaks. In one case, an entire family in civil service was arrested. Abduweli Ayup, a Uighur linguist in exile, said his wife’s relatives in Xinjiang — including her parents, siblings and in-laws — were detained shortly after the leaks were published, although Ayup said they had no relation to the leaks as far as he was aware. Some people in touch with relatives outside China were also investigated and seized, Ayup said.
It is unknown how many have been detained since the leaks.
Earlier this week, a Uighur woman in the Netherlands told a Dutch daily, de Volkskrant, that she was the source of the documents published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The woman, Asiye Abdulaheb, said that after she posted one page on social media in June, Chinese state agents sent her death threats and tried to recruit her ex-husband to spy on her.
Government strategy
The leaked documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, and to rewire their thoughts and the language they speak. They reveal that facilities Beijing calls “vocational training schools” are forced ideological and behavioral re-education centers run in secret.
The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.
The leaks come at a delicate time in relations between Washington and Beijing, amid ongoing negotiations to end a trade war and U.S. concerns about the situation in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory where police have clashed with pro-democracy protesters.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, aimed at pressuring China over the mass detentions in Xinjiang. Beijing swiftly denounced the bill as foreign meddling. State media reported that the Chinese government was considering retaliatory measures, including visa bans on U.S. officials.
North Korea says it successfully performed another “crucial test” at its long-range rocket launch site that would further strengthen its “reliable strategic nuclear deterrent.”
The announcement on Saturday comes as North Korea continues to pressure the Trump administration over an end-of-year deadline set by leader Kim Jong Un to salvage faltering nuclear negotiations.
North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science did not specify what was tested on Friday. Just days earlier, the North said it conducted a “very important test” at the site, prompting speculation that it involved a new engine for either a space launch vehicle or an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The North Korean announcement suggests that the country is preparing to do something to provoke the United States if Washington doesn’t back down and make concessions in deadlocked nuclear negotiations.
The Xinjiang regional government in China’s far west is deleting data, destroying documents, tightening controls on information and has held high-level meetings in response to leaks of classified papers on its mass detention camps for Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities, according to four people in contact with government employees there.
Top officials deliberated how to respond to the leaks in meetings at the Chinese Communist Party’s regional headquarters in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, some of the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of retribution against themselves, family members and the government workers.
The meetings began days after The New York Times published last month a cache of internal speeches on Xinjiang by top leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping. They continued after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists worked with news organizations around the world including The Associated Press to publish secret guidelines for operating detention centers and instructions on how to use technology to target people.
The Chinese government has long struggled with its 11-million-strong Uighur population, an ethnic Turkic minority native to Xinjiang, and in recent years has detained 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities in the camps.
Xinjiang officials and the Chinese foreign ministry have not directly denied the authenticity of the documents, though Urumqi Communist Party chief Xu Hairong called reports on the leaks “malicious smears and distortions.”
The Xinjiang government did not respond to a fax for comment on the arrests, the tightened restrictions on information and other measures responding to the leaks. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not have an immediate comment.
Xinjiang’s government had already mandated stricter controls on information in October, before the news reports, according to three of the people, all Uighurs outside Xinjiang.
They include orders for community-level officials to burn paper forms containing sensitive personal details on residents in their area such as their detention status, and for various state offices to throw away computers, tighten management of classified information, and ensure all information related to the camps is now stored on databases disconnected from the internet in special, restricted-access rooms to bar hackers, the Uighurs said.
“They became much more serious about the transfer of information,” one said.
Publication of the classified documents prompted the central government in Beijing to put more pressure on Xinjiang officials, several of the Uighurs said.
Restrictions on information appear to be tightening further. Some university teachers and district-level workers in Urumqi have been ordered to clean out sensitive data on their computers, phones and cloud storage, and to delete work-related social media groups, according to one Uighur with direct knowledge of the situation.
In other cases, the state appears to be confiscating evidence of detentions. Another Uighur who had been detained in Xinjiang years before said his ex-wife called him two weeks ago and begged him to send his release papers to her, saying eight officers had come to her home to search for the papers, then threatened she’d be jailed for life if she couldn’t produce the papers.
“It’s an old matter, and they’ve know I’ve been abroad for a long time,” he said. “The fact that they suddenly want this now must mean the pressure on them is very high.”
Some government workers have been rounded up as the state investigates the source of the leaks. In one case an entire family in civil service was arrested. Abduweli Ayup, a Uighur linguist in exile, said his wife’s relatives in Xinjiang – including her parents, siblings, and in-laws – were detained shortly after the leaks were published, although Ayup said they had no relation to the leaks as far as he was aware. Some people in touch with relatives outside China were also investigated and seized, Ayup said.
It is unknown how many have been detained since the leaks.
Earlier this week, a Uighur woman in the Netherlands told a Dutch daily, de Volkskrant, that she was the source of the documents published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The woman, Asiye Abdulaheb, said that after she posted one page on social media in June, Chinese state agents sent her death threats and tried to recruit her ex-husband to spy on her.
The leaked documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, and to rewire their thoughts and the language they speak. They reveal that facilities Beijing calls “vocational training schools” are forced ideological and behavioral re-education centers run in secret.
The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.
The leaks come at a delicate time in relations between Washington and Beijing, amid ongoing negotiations to end a trade war and U.S. concerns about the situation in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory where police have clashed with pro-democracy protesters.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, aimed at pressuring China over the mass detentions in Xinjiang. Beijing swiftly denounced the bill as foreign meddling. State media reported that the Chinese government was considering retaliatory measures including visa bans on U.S. officials.
U.S. House Democrats are one big step away from impeaching President Donald Trump. After 14 hours of contentious partisan debate, the House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved formal charges alleging Trump abused the power of his office and obstructed congressional efforts to investigate him. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson looks ahead to the final vote on impeachment on the House floor
Britain “deserves a break from wrangling, a break from politics and a permanent break from talking about Brexit,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday, after his Conservative Party won what Johnson described as an “extraordinary” election.”
“Let the healing begin,” the prime minister said.
Johnson focused his campaigning efforts on the slogan – “Get Brexit Done.” He said the parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party will allow him to push through a previously rejected divorce deal with the European Union and carry out Brexit by January 31, 2020.
He thanked Labour Party supporters who voted for the Conservative Party for the first time and promised a “One Nation Conservative government.”
“I say thank you for the trust you have placed in us and in me and we will work round the clock to repay your trust and to deliver on your priorities with a Parliament that works for you,” Johnson said.
The British leader, who accepted the Queen’s offer earlier Friday to form a government, said there is no one definition for one nation conservatism, “but broadly it refers to the idea the Conservative Party should act for everybody in the UK. That means policies that work for people from different economic backgrounds, from different regions and from the different nations of the UK.”
The win gives the Conservatives their biggest margin in parliament since the 1980s.
The Trump administration and China are close to finalizing a modest trade agreement that would suspend tariffs that are set to kick in Sunday, de-escalating their 17-month trade war.
“We’re close to a deal,” said Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s head of international affairs, who has been briefed by both sides.
Brilliant said the administration has agreed to suspend Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese imports Sunday and to reduce existing tariffs, though it wasn’t clear by how much.
In return, Beijing would buy more U.S. farm products, increase Americans companies’ access to the Chinese market and tighten protection for intellectual property rights.
The deal awaits final approval from President Donald Trump.
Trump took to Twitter early Thursday to declare: “Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with China. They want it, and so do we!”
Earlier Thursday, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, Gao Feng, had told reporters that “the economic and trade teams of both sides have maintained close communication.” He offered no additional details to release.
Beijing had threatened to retaliate if Trump proceeded with plans to raise tariffs on $160 billion of Chinese imports Sunday.
The two sides are negotiating a so-called Phase 1 agreement as part of the effort to resolve their sprawling trade dispute.
Still, the truce leaves unsettled the toughest and most complex issues that have divided the two sides.
The administration accuses Beijing of cheating in its drive to achieve global supremacy in such advanced technologies as driver-less cars and artificial intelligence. The administration alleges _ and independent analysts generally agree – that China steals technology, forces foreign companies to hand over trade secrets, unfairly subsidizes its own firms and throws up bureaucratic hurdles for foreign rivals.
Beijing rejects the accusations and contends that Washington is simply trying to suppress a rising competitor in international trade.
Since July 2018, the Trump administration has imposed import taxes on $360 billion in Chinese products. Beijing has retaliated by taxing $120 billion in U.S. exports, including soybeans and other farm products that are vital to many of Trump’s supporters in rural America.
On Sunday, the U.S. is scheduled to start taxing another $160 billion in Chinese imports, a move that would extend the sanctions to just about everything China ships to the United States.
Repeated rounds of negotiations had failed to achieve even a preliminary agreement. The prolonged uncertainty over Trump’s trade policies has slowed U.S. business investment and likely held back economic growth. Many corporations have slowed or suspended investment plans until they know when, how or even whether the trade standoff will end.
A far-reaching agreement on China’s technology policies will likely prove difficult. It would require Beijing to scale back its drive to become a global powerhouse in industrial high technology, something it sees as a path to prosperity and international influence.
Efforts to acquire foreign technology are a theme that runs through Chinese law and government. Security researchers have asserted that Beijing operates a network of research institutes and business parks to turn stolen foreign technology into commercial products.
The Trump administration has been seeking a way to enforce any significant trade agreement with China, reflecting its contention that Beijing has violated past promises. One way to do is to retain some tariffs as leverage.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee reconvenes Friday morning to vote on articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump. The committee recessed late Thursday after 14 hours of debate.
The Democratic-controlled committee rebuffed Republican attempts Thursday to weaken or throw out the allegations and instead will vote on sending them to the full House of Representatives for a vote, likely to be held next week.
Democratic lawmakers, after hours of at-times rancorous partisan claims and counterclaims with Republicans, rejected the Republican effort to eliminate the impeachment allegation that Trump abused the presidency by pushing Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic election rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.
The committee is also expected to approve a second article of impeachment, that Trump obstructed Congress by refusing to turn over hundreds of documents to impeachment investigators and blocked key Trump administration officials from testifying. The unified Democratic majority has the votes to block Republican efforts aimed at slowing the push to impeach Trump.
Flawed case?
Republicans contended that the case against Trump is flawed, that the committee was rushing to judgment without hearing more witnesses. They noted that Trump in September released the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine that Trump had temporarily blocked without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy launching the politically tinged Biden investigation that the U.S. leader wanted.
Trump asked Zelenskiy in a late July phone call to “do us a favor” by opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked theory that Ukraine worked to undermine Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, contended that the “us” in Trump’s request was a reference to the United States, not to a Trump request to benefit himself politically.
But Democratic Congressman David Cicilline, supporting Trump’s impeachment, said that Trump in his call with Zelenskiy “never once uttered the word corruption” to investigate corruption generally in Ukraine. “It was about a smear on Vice President Biden,” Cicilline argued.
If the full House, as expected, votes to impeach Trump, he would become only the third American leader to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history, setting the stage for a trial in the Republican-majority Senate in January, where his conviction and removal from office remains unlikely.
President Donald Trump speaks during the White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Trump’s stance
Trump denies wrongdoing and has ridiculed the impeachment effort. He has repeatedly referred to his discussions with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” and pointed to statements by Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials that they did not feel pressured by Trump to open the investigations in order to get the military assistance it wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler said that by withholding the military assistance, Trump “weakens an ally who advances American security interests by fighting an American adversary” and “weakens America. And when the president demands that a foreign government investigate his domestic political rivals, he corrupts our elections.”
The top Republican on the committee, Congressman Doug Collins, said Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump since the moment he took office in 2017, and that the facts of the case do not match the allegations they have presented.
“The president did not commit any crimes,” he said. “The president had a longstanding skepticism of foreign aid and a deeply held belief that Ukraine was corrupt, and not a good destination for American taxpayer dollars.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to reporters during a news conference, Dec. 10, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Next steps
Once the committee approves the articles, the full House with its Democratic majority is expected to vote on them next week.
The final step in the process would be a trial in the Senate, which Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday would occur next month.
“Assuming that House Democrats send us articles of impeachment next week, a Senate trial will have to be our first item of business in January,” McConnell said.
A conviction in the Senate would lead to Trump’s removal from office, but that is highly unlikely because at least 20 Republicans would have to side with Democrats to meet the required threshold of 67 of the chamber’s 100 members.
Two other U.S. presidents — Andrew Johnson in the mid-19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago — were impeached, but both were acquitted in the Senate and remained in office.
As early as next week, President Donald Trump could become only the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. If the Democratically-controlled House votes to impeach Trump for allegedly abusing his power related to his dealings with Ukraine, the case would move to the Republican-controlled Senate for an impeachment trial early next year where the political landscape is much more favorable to the president. From Washington, VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on what a Senate trial would look like.
President Donald Trump is now expected to become only the third U.S. president impeached by the House of Representatives.
If the Democratic-controlled House votes next week to impeach Trump for allegedly abusing his power related to his dealings with Ukraine, the case would move to the Republican-controlled Senate for an impeachment trial where the political landscape is much more favorable to the president.
While Democrats dominate the House, Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Democrats hold 45, and also count on the votes of two independents — Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
In order for Trump to be removed from office, the Senate, sitting as jurors, would need to convict him of one or more articles of impeachment by a two-thirds majority vote, or 67 of the 100 senators, according to the U.S. Constitution.
Republican-Led Senate Looms as Trump’s Savior video player.
Democrats would need to find a way to get 20 Senate Republicans to support conviction. Given polls that show Republican voters are still firmly behind the president, experts see Trump’s removal as highly unlikely.
“I do not see how in the world you could ever get 20 Republican senators to vote to oust Donald Trump,” said University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato via Skype. “They might as well vote to oust and then announce their resignations, because they won’t be serving for very long once they cast that vote.”
While House Republicans have stood with the president on impeachment, a few Senate Republicans such as Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have been critical of the president at times.
Associated Press Washington bureau chief Julie Pace said those senators will be watched closely in a Senate trial.
“It does not mean that they will vote to convict him, but it does mean that we may see a scenario in which you have at least some members of Trump’s party expressing real concern about his interactions with Ukraine.”
What kind of trial?
There is also the issue of how a Senate impeachment trial will be conducted. As laid out in the U.S. Constitution, Chief Justice John Roberts would preside. But the Senate approves the rules for consideration of evidence and witnesses.
Trump has said he would like to call a host of witnesses, including Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the whistleblower who filed the initial complaint over the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
,A copy of a page of the Articles of Impeachment is seen in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.
House Democrats have accused Trump of abuse of power by demanding that Ukraine announce an investigation of the Bidens, and a discredited theory that Ukraine conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 election in exchange for the release of $391 million in military aid that was temporarily held up by the White House.
White House officials expect the trial procedures will benefit the president. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump would be helped “where you get to introduce live witnesses and have them cross-examined, and introduce your own pieces of evidence, and challenge other people’s evidence.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are said to favor a shorter, streamlined trial that would not include witnesses. They would prefer to dispense of the impeachment case against Trump fairly quickly, perhaps in a few weeks. By contrast, the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999 ran for five weeks.
“I’m not in the camp of calling a bunch of witnesses. I think as an American, the best thing we can do is deep-six this thing,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Axios.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., denounces a report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 9, 2019.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has warned Republicans against a partisan trial.
“The best way to do something as important and almost as hallowed a procedure as this is in a bipartisan way,” the New York Democrat said.
That may not suit Trump, who reportedly wants to use impeachment as motivation to drive his supporters to the polls in next year’s presidential election.
Trump has denied the allegations and is counting on Senate Republicans to vote to acquit him in an impeachment trial.
“The radical left Democrats and the failed Washington establishment are trying to erase your votes, nullify the election and overthrow our democracy,” Trump told supporters this week at a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “It is not going to happen, don’t worry about it.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Dec. 10, 2019.
A test for the Senate
The Senate has been down this road before.
In 1999, Clinton was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson survived a Senate trial by a single vote after he was impeached for violating a congressional act protecting high government officials from removal.
In Trump’s case, House Democrats have accused him of abuse of power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, and obstruction of Congress for ordering administration officials to refuse to testify or provide documents as part of the impeachment inquiry.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., center, unveils articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.
“Our president holds the ultimate public trust,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, as he introduced the two articles of impeachment. “When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy, and he endangers our national security.”
No matter the outcome, a Senate trial will be a demanding test for U.S. democracy.
“I would hope and pray that all of my Senate colleagues will take a deep breath no matter where we have been so far and step back and realize this is probably the most important constitutional responsibility we have,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner told reporters at the Capitol.
Perhaps looking ahead to a January trial, Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered up an appeal this week for divine guidance as the Senate was gaveled to order.
“Lord, guide our senators to the right paths. Lead them beside still waters. Restore their souls.”
China’s Foreign Ministry, when asked about the trade deal with the United States, said it is committed to resolving the issues but the deal must be mutually beneficial.
Spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comments on Friday at a daily briefing.
The United States and China are coming up against a natural deadline on Dec. 15 when a tariff hike will come into effect.
Washington has set its terms for the first part of the so-called “phased deal”, offering to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and cut others in exchange for Beijing buying more American farm goods, U.S. sources have said.
Shares in Saudi Aramco gained on the second day of trading Thursday, propelling the oil and gas company to a more than $2 trillion valuation, where it holds the title of the world’s most valuable listed company.
Shares jumped in trading to reach up to 38.60 Saudi riyals, or $10.29 before noon, three hours before trading closes.
Aramco has sold a 1.5% share to mostly Saudi investors and local Saudi and Gulf-based funds.
With gains made from just two days of trading, Aramco sits comfortably ahead of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, the second largest company in the world valued at $1.19 trillion.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the architect of the effort to list Aramco, touting it as a way to raise capital for the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then develop new cities and lucrative projects across the country that create jobs for young Saudis.
He had sought a $2 trillion valuation for Aramco when he first announced in 2015 plans to sell a sliver of the state-owned company.
International investors, however, thought the price was too high, given the relatively lower price of oil, climate change concerns and geopolitical risks associated with Aramco. The company’s main crude oil processing facility and another site were targeted by missiles and drones in September, knocking out more than half of Saudi production for some time. The kingdom and the U.S. have blamed the attack on rival Iran, which denies involvement.
In the lead-up to the flotation, there had been a strong push for Saudis, including princes and businessmen, to contribute to what’s seen locally as a moment of national pride, and even duty. Gulf-based funds from allied countries also contributed to the IPO, though it has largely been propelled by Saudi capital.
At a ceremony Wednesday for the start of trading, Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, described the sale as “a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom.”
