China said on Thursday it was seeking opinions from companies, business associations and local governments on proposed reciprocal tariff-cut arrangements with the United States covering about $30 billion in trade, while Beijing and Washington kept the machinery of their trade truce humming in the background. The people and firms expected to live with the consequences are being asked to weigh in after the top-level deal has already been set in motion. That’s how these arrangements usually work: decisions at the top, consultation at the bottom.
Meng Huating, a Chinese commerce ministry official, said China was widely soliciting opinions from domestic enterprises, business associations, local governments and U.S. business associations on the tariff-reduction arrangements. He added that the United States was similarly seeking public opinions on tariff cuts. The ministry said teams from both sides had maintained close communication about the tariff-reduction framework and the structure, functions and operating model of their Board of Trade. China and the U.S. agreed this year to set up the Board of Trade after reaching a trade truce late last year to halt their tariff war, and China’s commerce ministry said in May that agricultural products would be part of the tariff-cut framework.
Who Gets Asked, Who Decides
The language is all consultation and framework, but the power sits with the states and the business interests they court. China said it was seeking opinions from companies, business associations and local governments on tariff cuts covering about $30 billion in trade. The United States, according to Meng, was doing the same. The public gets a hearing. The apparatus gets the final say.
Top diplomats from Asia, Europe and North America gathered in Manila for the security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum, where ministers were expected to call for a peaceful settlement of renewed and intensifying hostilities in the Middle East. The forum was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and top officials from Australia, Britain, China, the European Union, India, Japan and others. Maria Theresa Lazaro, the foreign secretary of the Philippines, which is chairing the grouping, said in opening remarks, "We convene against the backdrop of profound geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty," and added, "These issues transcend borders and underscore the reality that no nation can address today's complex security environment alone."
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying told a meeting of officials from ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea that the world had entered a "new period of turbulence and transformation" and warned of an urgent need for peace and stability. Rubio said a day earlier that the United States wanted a diplomatic solution in the Middle East, but Tehran was not playing ball. Rubio held talks with Lavrov for just under an hour, and Russia’s foreign ministry said the discussion ranged over the Ukraine war and normalisation of U.S.-Russia ties. Lavrov "reaffirmed Russia's readiness for a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict," and told Rubio that Moscow remained committed to proposals put forward by the leaders of both nations. The U.S. State Department said bilateral relations and "the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war" figured in the discussions.
The Forum of Powerful Men
Manila became the stage for a parade of state power, with officials from the U.S., Russia, China and other governments talking peace while their own rivalries kept grinding on. The words were polished. The hierarchy was not.
The South China Sea was another focal point in Manila. Rubio described China’s actions there as "disturbing" and said, "The whole world saw it, and it's disturbing," adding, "We have a role, and we're not going to abandon our allies. We've made that abundantly clear." The Philippines accused a Chinese coast guard vessel of firing a water cannon at a government fisheries vessel near Scarborough Shoal on Thursday, with the blast scoring an indirect hit. The Philippine coast guard said water cannon was used on a government fisheries vessel that was engaged in a "purely humanitarian undertaking."
China said it tracked and drove away two Philippine vessels it accused of having "intruded into" waters near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which it calls Huangyan Dao, despite a warning. China’s Coast Guard said, "We urge the Philippines to immediately cease its infringing and provocative actions," and said the measures it took, including tracking, monitoring and interception, were "standard, professional and lawful." The Philippines and China remain locked in a territorial dispute despite a 2016 arbitral ruling that found China’s claims in the South China Sea had no legal basis, a ruling China rejects.
At Sea, the Same Old Command Structure
A government fisheries vessel, a coast guard ship, a disputed shoal, a warning, a blast. Ordinary people and crews keep getting shoved around by competing claims dressed up as law, security and sovereignty. The 2016 arbitral ruling said China’s claims had no legal basis. China rejects it. The dispute keeps going.
Reuters said the Philippines regularly sends supplies to a small number of soldiers aboard the World War Two-era warship BRP Sierra Madre, which it grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert its claims. Reuters also said a Filipino sailor was injured on Monday at Second Thomas Shoal after being struck with a baton by Chinese Coast Guard personnel, and that a violent confrontation there in June 2024, where a Filipino sailor lost a finger, prompted the Philippines and China to reach a provisional arrangement on resupply missions. Manila’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the arrangement neither recognises any foreign jurisdiction nor requires the Philippines to ask China for permission to carry out resupply missions.
Reuters said China’s coast guard engaged in a brief altercation with Philippine navy personnel on Monday near a disputed reef in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, prompting the countries to summon each other’s ambassadors. Reuters also said China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi did not attend Thursday’s forum in Manila and was due to join a regional meeting in Kyrgyzstan, and that he told ASEAN counterparts on Wednesday the South China Sea was "our common home," where peace and stability rested in the hands of all. He said regional countries should "resist the incitement of foreign forces, oppose individual countries using the sea to make trouble," according to an official statement. Reuters said Beijing began two days of live-fire drills in parts of the Taiwan Strait near the shores of its southeastern province of Fujian on Thursday, a day after Wang and Rubio held talks in Manila on a range of issues including Taiwan.
The same governments that talk about stability keep moving ships, troops and trade rules around like pieces on a board. Everyone else is left to absorb the pressure.