February Politburo meeting; Initial reaction to additional 10% US tariffs; Shoigu meets Xi and Wang; New MIIT head

The official readout of the February Politburo meeting does not contain much new information, and in fact repeats the economic policy formulation from the Central Economic Work Conference last December. I have included a full translation of the readout further down in this issue.

There has yet to be a substantive reaction to the additional 10% tariffs Trump announced yesterday, but both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) condemned the move. I fully expect that the PRC has prepared a package of countermeasures, one that like the response to the first 10% at the start of February will include much more than tariffs. The key question is does Xi pull the trigger now and continue the escalatory cycle, or does he hold off and try harder to have a call with Trump?

The MoC stated that:

China is one of the world's strictest and most t…