The fragile trade truce between the United States and China has, for now, been pulled back from the brink.

US President Donald Trump finally got his long-anticipated phone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during which the two agreed to resume trade talks that had stalled over accusations from each side that the other had reneged on previous promises.

Thursday’s 90-minute conversation brought a temporary reprieve from an escalating feud between the superpower rivals, but it offered no clear path toward resolving their deep-rooted divisions – especially over crucial supply chains that both sides consider vital to national security.

US officials accused China of backpedaling on its pledge made during May talks in Geneva to ease export restrictions on rare earth minerals critical to a wide range of industries. Beijing, meanwhile, has bristled at Washington’s moves to warn companies against using China’s most advanced AI chips, restrict chip design software sales to China and “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas.

“After what happened during the past 10 days, I already call (the phone call) a win,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank.

“Both sides acknowledge that this was a positive interaction, and the two leaders coming together can solve problems. It’s good for their strong man image and leadership credentials.”

While Trump had repeatedly expressed keenness for the call, including complimenting Xi’s toughness in a late-night social media post this week, Xi has taken his time in picking up the phone.

“The Chinese state is under significantly less pressure than its American counterpart in coming to the negotiating table,” said Brian Wong, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. “The Chinese leadership joined the call from a position of political strength, even whilst economic concerns are very much alive and real.”

Supply chain bottlenecks

Trump’s eagerness to talk – and his speediness in declaring that he had “straightened out” the dispute over rare earth exports with Xi – has once again demonstrated to the Chinese leader just how powerful his nation’s dominance in the sector is.

Since April, when China announced the export controls, the new system has disrupted the shipment of the minerals, raising alarms among officials and businesses alike in Europe and America.

In the Chinese readout, Xi insisted that China had “seriously and earnestly” complied with the agreement, even as US officials have repeatedly accused Beijing of slow-walking approvals for rare earth exports.

Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, noted that official rules dictate that applications for export licenses can take up to 45 working days to be approved.

“In principle, I can agree to export to you, but I can speed things up or slow them down. In reality, on a technical level, it also depends on the overall bilateral trade and economic atmosphere,” he said. “If the bilateral relationship is good, then I’ll go a bit faster; if not, I’ll slow down. But you can’t say I’m violating the agreement — I’m still following the standard procedures.”

While American businesses are likely to see more export licenses approved in the next couple of weeks, according to Wu, the export control regime is here to stay.

Zhiqun Zhu, director of the China Institute at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, put it more bluntly, calling China’s dominance on rare earths “one of the few cards” it holds in the trade war.

“Why would the US government expect China to give up the rare earth card to please the US if it treats China as the enemy?” he wrote in an article prior to the Trump-Xi call.

In the days leading up to the phone call, Chinese scholars have suggested that Beijing should use its leverage on rare earths to get Washington to ease its own export controls on cutting-edge chips. Unlike rare earths, China doesn’t dominate this industry at the highest levels, and it views any supply bottleneck on the US side as an obstacle to its technological development.

Following his conversation with Xi, Trump announced that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will join Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in the next round of trade talks.

That was noted by observers in both China and the US as a sign that US export controls may now be up for negotiation in a potential win for Beijing.

“The US Department of Commerce is responsible for export controls, which means that in the next stage, China-US negotiations will likely go beyond tariffs and also address issues such as export controls and entity sanctions,” Wu said.

During his first term in office, Trump lifted a ban on American companies doing business with Chinese telecom giant ZTE at Xi’s request to get a trade deal. But six years on, easing export controls on China will be a tough sell in Washington, where blocking Beijing’s access to advanced American technologies has become a rare bipartisan issue.

“Just having Lutnick there (in the trade talks) doesn’t mean that the US is going to make concessions on semiconductors,” Sun said.

She predicts more flare-ups of tensions down the road. “This ‘three steps forward two steps back’ is going to be the norm from now on. We’re not going to see a deal agreed without any drawbacks, and we’re going to see this repeating itself,” she added.

Different approaches

While the call signaled temporary relief, it also exposed stark differences in how the US and China approach their trade disputes: Trump tends to treat trade as a primary and standalone issue, whereas Beijing often views it in the context of broader bilateral relations.

Trump said in his Truth Social post that the hour-and-a-half conversation phone call was “focused almost entirely on TRADE,” while the Chinese readout singled out Xi’s stern warning on Taiwan – the reddest of lines for Beijing – and the issue of Chinese student visas.

The Chinese leader urged the US to “handle the Taiwan question with prudence” so that “‘Taiwan independence’ separatists” will not be able to “drag China and America into the dangerous terrain of confrontation and even conflict.”

The contrast strikes at the core of the gulf between China and the US, Wong said.

“Whilst Trump views the competition through primarily trade surplus/deficit terms, Xi views territorial integrity as … more important than the country’s economic interests,” he said.

From Beijing’s perspective, there are plenty of worrying signs. Last weekend, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Asian allies that China posed an “imminent” threat to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Beijing views as its own and has vowed to take control of, by force if necessary.

Days before, Reuters had reported, citing US official sources, that Washington plans to ramp up weapon sales to Taipei to a level exceeding Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China’s intensifying military pressure.

Another issue of concern for Beijing is the fate of Chinese students in the US. Last week, Secretary of State Macro Rubio, a known China-hawk, announced a plan to “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese students, a move that has caused widespread anxiety and anger in China.

The Chinese readout quoted Trump as saying that Chinese students are welcome in the US. Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office: “Chinese students are coming. No problem. No problem. It’s our honor to have them.”

Wu said the adjustment of the visa policy will be a test of Trump’s leadership. During their call, Xi told Trump that the two leaders should “take the helm and set the right course” for bilateral relations, saying it’s particularly important to steer clear of “various disturbances and disruptions.”

“This remark had a clear target – it implies that within Trump’s team, there are people trying to disrupt or undermine the bilateral relationship, so now it’s up to President Trump to show leadership,” Wu said.

A young Tibetan controversially appointed by China’s atheist Communist Party as the second-highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism has pledged to make the religion more Chinese.

Gyaltsen Norbu was installed by Beijing as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995 in defiance of the religion’s highest authority the Dalai Lama, whose pick for the role — a six-year-old boy — has since vanished from public view. China has yet to reveal any information on the whereabouts of the missing boy.

The Beijing-appointed Panchen Lama is dismissed as an imposter by many Tibetans at home and in exile, but he is often quoted in China’s state-run media toeing the Communist Party’s line and praising its policies in Tibet.

In a rare meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, Gyaltsen Norbu vowed to make his own contributions to promoting ethnic unity and systematically advancing “the sinicization of religion,” state news agency Xinhua reported.

The remarks refer to a sweeping campaign unleashed by Xi with an aim to purge religious faiths of foreign influence and align them more closely with traditional Chinese culture – and the authoritarian rule of the officially atheist Communist Party.

Gyaltsen Norbu also vowed to keep Xi’s teachings firmly in mind, resolutely support the party’s leadership and firmly safeguard national unity and ethnic solidarity, according to Xinhua.

He was told by Xi to carry forward the “patriotic and religious traditions” of Tibetan Buddhism and contribute to fostering “a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation,” Xinhua reported.

The meeting comes on the 30th year of the disappearance of the Dalai Lama appointed Panchen Lama.

Following the 1989 death of the 10th Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama named Tibetan child Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as his colleague’s reincarnation.

But three days after he was chosen, according to the US government, Gedhun and his family were disappeared by the Communist Party, which then appointed an alternative Panchen Lama. Gedhun hasn’t been seen in public since.

In a statement marking that anniversary, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced Chinese authorities for “abducting” him and his family. He called on Beijing to immediately release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and “stop persecuting Tibetans for their religious beliefs.”

In 2020, the Chinese government publicly acknowledged the fate of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima for the first time, describing him as “a college graduate with a job,” and that neither he nor his family wished to be disturbed in their “current normal lives.”

Meanwhile, Gyaltsen Norbu has occupied an increasingly high-profile role since becoming an adult, joining a top Chinese political body, often appearing at important events in Beijing and meeting large crowds in the Tibetan regions of China.

The contested appointment of the Panchen Lama is widely seen by experts and the Tibetan exile community as Beijing’s attempt to pave the way for the passing – and reincarnation – of the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since fleeing to India following a failed Tibetan uprising against Communist Party rule in 1959.

For decades, the Dalai Lama has been a persistent thorn in Beijing’s side as he commanded the loyalty of many Tibetan people from exile and kept their struggle for greater autonomy alive on the world stage. Chinese officials have condemned the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as a “separatist” and a “wolf in monk’s robes.”

The Dalai Lama has said he will release details about his succession around his 90th birthday in July. In his latest book, “Voice for the Voiceless,” the Dalai Lama said his successor will be born in the “free world,” which he described as outside China.

Beijing has insisted it will choose his successor – as well as the reincarnation of all Tibetan Buddhist lamas, but the Dalai Lama and his supporters have said that any successor named by China would not be respected.

New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Māori haka to protest a proposed law.

Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days. Three days had been the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand’s Parliament before.

The lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori Party, performed the haka, a chanting dance of challenge, last November to oppose a widely unpopular bill, now defeated, that they said would reverse Indigenous rights.

But the protest drew global headlines and provoked months of fraught debate among lawmakers about what the consequences for the lawmakers’ actions should be and whether New Zealand’s Parliament welcomed or valued Māori culture — or felt threatened by it.

A committee of the lawmakers’ peers in April recommended the lengthy punishments in a report that said the lawmakers were not being punished for the haka itself, but for striding across the floor of the debating chamber towards their opponents while they did it. Maipi-Clarke Thursday rejected that, citing other instances where legislators have left their seats and approached their opponents without sanction.

It was expected that the suspensions would be approved, because government parties have more seats in Parliament than the opposition and had the necessary votes to affirm them. But the punishment was so severe that Parliament Speaker Gerry Brownlee in April ordered a free-ranging debate among lawmakers and urged them to attempt to reach a consensus on what repercussions were appropriate.

No such accord was reached Thursday. During hours of at times emotional speeches, government lawmakers rejected opposition proposals for lighter sanctions.

There were suggestions that opposition lawmakers might extend the debate for days or even longer through filibuster-style speeches, but with the outcome already certain and no one’s mind changed, all lawmakers agreed that the debate should end.

The number of newborns in Japan is decreasing faster than projected, with the number of annual births falling to another record low last year, according to government data released Wednesday.

The health ministry said 686,061 babies were born in Japan in 2024, a drop of 5.7% on the previous year and the first time the number of newborns fell below 700,000 since records began in 1899. It’s the 16th straight year of decline.

It’s about one-quarter of the peak of 2.7 million births in 1949 during the postwar baby boom.

The data in a country of rapidly aging and shrinking population adds to concern about the sustainability of the economy and national security at a time it seeks to increase defense spending.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described the situation as “a silent emergency” and has promised to promote more flexible working environment and other measures that would help married couples to balance work and parenting, especially in rural areas where family values tend to be more conservative and harder on women.

Japan is one of a number of east Asian countries grappling with falling birth rates and an aging population. South Korea and China have fought for years to encourage families to have more children. Also on Wednesday, Vietnam scrapped decades-old laws limiting families to two children in an effort to stem falling birth rates.

The health ministry’s latest data showed that Japan’s fertility rate – the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – also fell to a new low of 1.15 in 2024, from 1.2 a year earlier. The number of marriages was slightly up, to 485,063 couples, but the downtrend since the 1970s remains unchanged.

Experts say the government’s measures have not addressed a growing number of young people reluctant to marry, largely focusing on already married couples.

The younger generation are increasingly reluctant to marry or have children due to bleak job prospects, a high cost of living and a gender-biased corporate culture that adds extra burdens for women and working mothers, experts say.

A growing number of women also cite pressure to take their husband’s surname as a reason for their reluctance to marry. Under Japanese law, couples must choose a single surname to marry.

Japan’s population of about 124 million people is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070, with 40% of the population over 65.