Mortgage rate cuts; Raimondo meets Li Qiang; Huawei launches 5G phone early; Putin to China

A slow late summer day, so today’s newsletter is a bit thin. This week’s episode of the Sharp China podcast will be in your inbox Wednesday. We had a good discussion about the Fukushima water and the Raimondo visit, among other topics.

Summary of today’s top items:

1. Putin to visit China - Bloomberg reports that Putin will go to China in October for the Belt and Road Forum, at the invitation of Xi.

2. Existing mortgage rate cuts expected - The PBoC had signaled these cuts were coming, the banks appear to have not been eager participants, but it sounds like they will now be crammed through. What impact reduced mortgage payments may have on consumer spending and whether this move will slow the pace of mortgage prepayments is not clear.

3. Commerce Secretary Raimondo in China - The Secretary met with Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng. According to the Xinhua readout, she told Premier Li that “the Biden administration supports China's economic development and improvement of peop…