Fool Liu He once, shame on you. Fool him twice? How dare you!
Such is the outrage that erupted in Beijing just hours after the Trump administration decided to issue criminal charges against Huawei Communications and its former chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on the eve of a possibly make-or-break round of trade negotiations between the world’s two largest economies.
Vice Premier Liu, President Xi Jinping’s lead trade negotiator, is due to sit down with US trade representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday for two days of talks aimed at reaching a trade war settlement by March 1. If an agreement cannot be reached by then, President Donald Trump has said he will more than double the punitive tariffs currently assessed on about half of all Chinese exports to the US.