One day after vice president Mike Pence and China's president Xi Jinping clashed after exchanging sharply worded barbs in a showdown between the two superpowers, on Sunday the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit ended in unprecedented chaos and disarray, without agreement on a joint communique for the first time in its history as the escalating rivalry between the United States and China dominated proceedings and reflected escalating trade tensions.
Pence, who left Papua New Guinea on Sunday afternoon along with Xi, said there had been major differences between his country and China.
“They begin with trade practices, with tariffs and quotas, forced technology transfers, the theft of intellectual property. It goes beyond that to freedom of navigation in the seas [and] concerns about human rights,” he said.
As Bloomberg summarizes and as discussed yesterday, Pence sharpened U.S. attacks on China during a week of summits that ended Sunday, most notably with a call for nations to avoid loans that would leave them indebted to Beijing. He said the U.S. wasn’t in a rush to end the trade war and would “not change course until China changes its ways” -- a worrying prospect for a region heavily reliant on exports.
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