China

China's Ministry of Commerce released a position paper on July 28 defending its subsidy framework and rejecting what it calls the over-securitization of economic issues, while citing retail sales growth from 23.8 trillion yuan in 2013 to 50.1 trillion yuan in 2025. The EU's October target for tangible trade results is a political goal stated by Commissioner Šefčovič, not a legally binding deadline in the June 29 joint statement, which schedules the next ministerial meeting for autumn 2026. A fall 2026 Washington visit by President Xi has been announced by the White House, but no date has been set, and key mechanisms from the May Trump-Xi summit, including the Board of Trade, remain under public specification.

On August 3, 2026, HKEX began trading a cash-settled, RMB500,000 five-year China Government Bond futures contract, supported by 13 liquidity providers across five banks and eight securities firms. The contract fills a gap in the offshore market, where no equivalent product previously existed, and differs from the onshore CFFEX version in being cash-settled rather than physically delivered and half the face value. The SFC and CSRC used the launch to announce broader cooperation measures, including plans for more RMB-denominated futures and ETFs in Hong Kong, though a possible 10-year tenor has no scheduled launch date.