‘US disappointed by slow Beijing reform’

Bloomberg

The US has been disappointed this year at China’s lack of progress in pursuing market-oriented reforms, said a senior administration official, ratcheting up the pressure on the world’s second-largest economy ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit there next month.
While China made progress in previous decades toward market pricing and reducing the number of state-owned enterprises, the US is concerned now with subsidies, excess capacity, and its industrial policy, said the official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss sensitive policy issues.
A meeting earlier this year between President Xi Jinping and Trump in Mar-a-Lago was very good but the US had hoped for more follow-through on reform, the official said. The Comprehensive Economic Dialogue between the two economies a few months later failed to yield desired results, the person said.
The official’s comments follow days after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson noted in an interview growing US impatience with China on issues from North Korea to trade. Trump is due to visit Beijing on November 8 as part of his first trip to Asia, where he’ll also attend a meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, in Vietnam.
Xi’s address to the Communist Party demonstrated that the leader is clearly in a strengthened position, so that gives him ample room for building a stronger, more market-oriented economy, the US official said.