Chinese state media is playing down expectations for any significant breakthrough from this week’s trade talks with the United States, while US President Donald Trump said Beijing could delay the deal until after the 2020 presidential election.

Washington and Beijing have confirmed that the next round of negotiations will be held in Shanghai on Tuesday and Wednesday – the first face-to-face meeting since talks on their year-long trade war collapsed in early May.

It will also be the first in-person meeting of top negotiators since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump agreed to resume trade talks at their summit in Osaka, Japan last month.

But on Friday, Trump told reporters he would not be surprised if China held out until after the US election to secure a trade deal. “I don’t think personally China would sign a deal if I had a 2 per cent chance of losing the election,” he said.

Vice-Premier Liu He and Commerce Minister Zhong Shan are expected to host US negotiators led by US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the Xijiao State Guest Hotel in Shanghai – a deeply symbolic place in the two countries’ bilateral relationship.

Visiting the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Thursday, Liu urged officials to improve China’s manufacturing capabilities. “It’s your inescapable responsibility … to develop China into a powerful manufacturing country,” Liu said, according to a statement from the ministry on Sunday.

Zhong, meanwhile, arrived in Shanghai on Saturday, holding a meeting to mark the 100-day countdown to China’s second import expo in November, according to a commerce ministry statement. The minister did not mention the upcoming trade talks.

An editorial in Global Times, a tabloid backed by People’s Daily, said the negotiations were expected to be tough because “the gaps remain huge between the two sides”.

Source: South China Morning Post

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