Referring to Mr. Xi and his advisers, he added: “The question has always been how skilled are these guys as policymakers. Chinese officials had assumed that would keep Mr. Trump from following through on his trade threats, as he had suggested more than once. Though Mr. Liu was acting as Mr. Xi’s personal envoy, Mr. Trump declined to meet him. In another sign of Mr. Xi’s trust in him, Mr. Liu was promoted last week to vice premier overseeing the economy. But a trade war that hurts the Chinese economy could slow Mr. Xi’s agenda and roil Chinese politics in unpredictable ways.

Source: New York Times March 22, 2018 17:09 UTC