The two last met in Beijing in May, but the key encounter was in South Korea last October. Trump backed down from imposing more tariffs on China in return for Xi easing off on export controls on rare earth minerals, a near-monopoly which Beijing has spent decades painstakingly constructing.
Supposedly, Xi agreed a moratorium on export controls until this November. In practice, Beijing seems to have been tugging on the leash ever since. Rare earth exports have been falling in recent months, with reported concerns among Chinese producers of angering Beijing by selling to the US. In June, China added two US rare earth companies to its export…
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