It is a rainy Tuesday here in DC and a bit of a slow news day so there is not much commentary up top from me.

There is a growing expectation that the US-China trade talks will lead to at least a ceasefire and a framework deal to keep discussing (aka punting on) the deeper structural issues. Are we getting lulled into false confidence, or has President Trump decided he needs a deal, for political and economic reasons? I believe Xi long ago decided he needed a deal but he and his negotiators are in no hurry to make big concessions while they pursue every available avenue to soften President Trump’s resolve.

The China studies field lost a giant. Professor Roderick MacFarquhar passed away over the weekend. The South China Morning Post has published one of the first of many obituaries to come - Roderick MacFarquhar: the scholar who wrote the leading history of China’s Cultural Revolution as it happened:

Harvard University’s Fairbank Centre for China Studies, where MacFarquhar was director fro…