China reportedly holds backdoor talks with tech companies ahead of G20 meeting with US
- The Chinese government reportedly met with several top American technology companies that it urged to not cooperate with President Donald Trump's ban on American technology sales to the country.
- The New York Times reported that the meeting was held with companies the country had labeled "unreliable" as a response to Trump's blacklist of Chinese technology giant Huawei.
- News of the meeting comes the same day Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are slated to meet later in June amid stalled trade talks.
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The Chinese government met with several top American technology companies in an apparent effort to convince them to not cooperate with President Donald Trump's ban on American technology sales to the country, according to several anonymous sources who spoke to the New York Times.
The meetings were reportedly held with companies identified as relevant by the Chinese as the country's response to Trump's administration adding Chinese technology giant Huawei to a trade blacklist.
The blacklist restricted the company from buying services and parts from US companies without approval, affecting access to a wide variety of American-made hardware and software by companies including Qualcomm and Google.
Since the blacklist, the two countries have imposed tit-for-tat trade tariffs against each other and the Trump administration officially designated Huawei a national security threat last month.
The report of the meeting comes the same day US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was reported to be meeting with People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang in what would be the most recent high-level meeting between the countries.
Mnuchin played down the meeting to reporters saying it was "not a negotiating meeting," and said the US would continue to press tariffs on China unless the country intends to "come back to the table and negotiate."
In a meeting that could offer a breakthrough, Mnuchin said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump are slated to meet at a Group of 20 summit later in June amid stalled talks.
China and the US have publicly traded barbs since before the blacklist, but a June deal between Russia's largest network provider and Huawei to build 5G internet marked a significant escalation in the hostile dialog between the countries.
Alexandra Ma contributed reporting.
- Read more on the tech cold war:
- THE TECH COLD WAR: Everything that's happened in the new China-US tech conflict involving Google, Huawei, Apple, and Trump
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- China is warning its citizens to avoid traveling to the US because of 'frequent cases of shootings'