This past week, CTM covered the following issues.

Last weekend, Chinese and U.S. trade officials concluded their fifth round of high-level negotiations since the start of the year, saying that they had successfully delivered a framework agreement. Then on Thursday, trade officials from China and the U.S. met in South Korea and announced a temporary truce, suspending some tariffs, export restrictions, and the collection of port fees.

Amid rising scrutiny over its export controls, China's exports of rare earths dipped modestly in September while sales of high‑value magnets, which are vital to everything from electric cars to fighter jets, remained strong, with the exception of exports to the U.S.

China and the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (ACFTA) 3.0 Upgrade Protocol, designed to deepen economic ties by expanding cooperation into strategic new areas, introducing new chapters on the digital economy, green economy, and supply chain connectivity.

China’s Communist Party kicked off its fourth plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, and subsequently the Central Committee put forward its proposals for the country's 15th five-year plan.

Turning to the U.S., USTR initiated a Section 301 investigation of China's compliance with the Phase One trade deal ahead of the week's bilateral negotiations.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a policy change under which a company's status as being Chinese state-sponsored will be considered as part of the patent-granting process.

The White House posted the text of trade agreements it signed with Cambodia and Malaysia. Both agreements have a number of provisions that target or have an impact on China in some way.

At a Brookings Institution event, former Biden administration official Peter Harrell and other participants talked about how the upcoming USMCA review could touch upon some China trade issues.

As part of the Section 232 investigations on robotics/industrial machinery and medical equipment, the Chinese government and trade associations made submissions arguing against any potential tariffs.

In Canada, the Canadian government announced last Friday that it was initiating anti-dumping/countervailing duty investigations on imports of truck bodies from China, following the U.S. recent tariffs on imports of trucks and truck parts.