Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell and Chinese Minister for Commerce Wang Wentao held a virtual meeting today, with an invitation extended to Farrell for an in-person meeting in the near future.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would prohibit sales of oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve to entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and similar legislation has now been introduced in the Senate.

Data from China's Customs shows that the exports of companies registered in Xinjiang to the United States dropped to a historical low in December, with an annual contraction of 22.3% last year. This is likely a result of both the implementation of the U.S. Uyghur Forced

In late January, Congressman Thomas Tiffany (R-WI) introduced a resolution that "calls on the President to abandon the One China policy in favor of one that recognizes Taiwan as an independent country that is not a part of China." The resolution also "urges the President to bolster

Reports suggest that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has taken recent actions against imports of aluminum from the Xinjiang region, although the import volumes affected are likely to be small.

A group of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives has put forward a new effort to restrict farmland purchases associated with the Chinese government, following a number of other similar legislative efforts.

This past week, CTM covered the following issues. In China: * Extensions of anti-dumping/countervailing duties on U.S. grains * Authorization of seafood imports from Comoros * Call between foreign minsters of China and Japan * Part II of interview with Scott Kennedy of CSIS about China's policies in the context