APEC Summit: After Mike Pence, Xi Jinping spar over tariffs, infrastructure; grouping fails to issue joint statement

Chinese president Xi Jinping and US vice president Mike Pence traded barbs in speeches at the APEC summit of world leaders on Saturday, outlining competing visions for global leadership as trade and other tensions between them simmer. Chinese president Xi Jinping and US vice-president Mike Pence traded barbs in speeches at the APEC Summit of world leaders on Saturday, outlining competing visions for global leadership as trade and other tensions between them simmer. US-China tariff war Pence said there would be no letup in President Donald Trump’s policy of combating China’s mercantilist trade policy and intellectual property theft that has erupted into a tit-for-tat tariff war between the two world powers this year. The vice-president harshly criticised China’s global infrastructure drive, known as the “Belt and Road Initiative,” calling many of the projects low quality that also saddle developing countries with loans they can’t afford.