Ahead of the China-Central Asian Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with leaders of the five Central Asian countries, renewing their ties and signing bilateral agreements on trade, investment, energy, and transportation.

USTR announced today that the United States and Taiwan "have concluded negotiations on the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade," and released the full text of an agreement.

Recently, the Chinese government issued several drafts of mandatory national standards for automobiles, including on cyber security and management systems, as well as on data recording systems. One of the drafts touches on vehicle designs and settings that would allow cross-border data transfer.

After months of negotiations, China and Ecuador signed a bilateral trade agreement last week. This makes Ecuador the fourth country in the Latin American region to have a trade agreement with China.

Last week, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell traveled to China and met with his Chinese counterpart, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, as part of the continued effort to ease tensions in Australia-China trade and foreign relations.

Last week, China's market regulator published a notice stating that Tesla had filed a plan to recall over 1 million vehicles sold in China between 2019 and 2023.

The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) published reports on inspections of two accounting firms that audited 40% of the total market share of U.S.-listed companies audited by Hong Kong and mainland firms. The reports noted "unacceptable rates" of deficiencies, as the audit firms