US President Donald Trump (PTI)
WASHINGTON: From barring Chinese companies listing on American stock exchanges to turfing out Chinese students from American universities, the United States is gradually tightening the screws on China with each passing day, with Beijing’s retaliatory tactics taking their bilateral relations juddering down a slippery slope.
The precipitous decline in ties, coming on the heels of mutual recrimination about issues relating to the coronavirus pandemic, is aggravating at an alarming speed in part due to the upcoming electoral season in the US. Both Republican and Democrats are vying to show each other as weak in the face of China’s challenges, and the Chinese leadership’s need to show they are not being browbeaten by Washington is not helping matters either.
On Wednesday, the US Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation that could lead to Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Baidu being barred from listing on US stock exchanges with a requirement that to certify that they are not under the control of a foreign government. Lawmakers also said Chinese companies will require to be audited by or the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for three consecutive years, even as Washington has