US, China using TikTok vs Soybeans as bait amid Madrid Summit

Seoul, Sep 15 (IANS) There are speculations that a tense battle of wits will unfold between Chinese company TikTok and American soybeans on the first day of the US-China trade talks held in Madrid, Spain on September 14.

According to reports from foreign media outlets such as Bloomberg and Chinese media outlets such as the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong, TikTok and soybeans appear to have emerged as new points of contention amid a tense tug-of-war between the two sides over existing issues such as the imposition of high reciprocal tariffs, restrictions on advanced technologies such as semiconductor chips for artificial intelligence (AI) in the US, and restrictions on the supply of rare earth elements in China.

The US has officially raised the issue of forcibly selling TikTok, and in response, China has also put forward the issue of importing US soybeans, which are entering the harvest season, as a new card.

The general consensus is that the US-China tariff and trade conflict, which is the biggest concern of the international community, will only find a solution when US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet.

For this reason, it is clear that the two countries are speeding up coordination of agendas ahead of President Trump's visit to China, which is expected to take place around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Gyeongju, South Korea, from October 31 to November 1.

China is moving into negotiations after flaunting its "anti-US, non-US big tent" with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Tianjin Summit, which even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended, and the 80th anniversary military parade featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un.

On the 9th, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun held a video call, and on the 10th, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Wang Yi, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Communist Party of China and Minister of Foreign Affairs, held a video call to coordinate defense and diplomatic issues, and then trade talks began on the 14th.

On the first day of the Madrid trade talks, the US delegation, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and the Chinese delegation, led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, held six hours of discussions.

Bloomberg reported that the Chinese delegation is expected to stay in Spain until the 17th, and predicted that the second meeting will be held on the 15th.

Diplomatic circles predict that a US-China summit will be held before November 10th, the end date of the 90-day ceasefire in the US-China tariff and trade war, which was re-established by President Trump's executive order on the 11th of last month.

The Trump administration has been concerned about TikTok, the video-sharing platform owned by China's ByteDance. TikTok, which is effectively under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, has been wildly popular among American youth since 2019.

In particular, President Trump has been pushing for a complete ban on TikTok since his first term in office, citing the potential for personal information leaks and threats to national security. However, concerns about the potential infringement of freedom of expression as stipulated in the US Constitution were also significant.

The United States has enacted the so-called "TikTok Forced Divestment Act," citing national security concerns. President Trump has extended the deadline for the forced divestment of TikTok's US business rights three times, with the final extension ending on the 17th of this month.

In light of this, the Trump administration appears intent on pressuring Chinese authorities through US-China tariff and trade negotiations to induce TikTok to voluntarily sell and withdraw from the United States, Yonhap news agency reported.

In response, China has threatened legal action, viewing the pressure to sell TikTok as unfair treatment of its technology and companies and an infringement on its sovereignty, and has also expressed its strong will to take action, including suspending TikTok's service in the United States.

Meanwhile, China appears to have applied strong pressure during the talks over the issue of importing American soybeans.

This trend can also be seen in the editorial published on the 15th by the Global Times, a state-run media outlet and sister publication of the Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily, which emphasized that "American soybean farmers are missing out on the opportunity to sell billions of dollars worth of soybeans even though the harvest season has arrived," and that "this is the adverse effect of the US trade war with China."

The paper also said US soybean farmers are deeply concerned that they will have to prepare for harvest in the absence of purchase orders from China.

In fact, President Trump said on the 11th of last month that he hopes China will quickly quadruple its soybean orders, but China has been weighing the situation without giving an immediate response.

According to data from the General Administration of Customs of China, China's soybean imports from January to July this year amounted to 61.03 million tons, of which Brazilian soybeans accounted for 70 per cent and American soybeans slightly over 25 per cent.

The United States was once China's largest importer of soybeans, but China's tariff and trade disputes with the United States have changed that.

China, the world's largest soybean importer, claims that it is diversifying its import sources, but the general analysis is that its true intention is to "weaponize soybeans."

The issue that the international community is most interested in is the reciprocal tariff rate that the United States will impose on China.

President Trump's "hardline" stance led the US and China to impose triple-digit retaliatory tariffs, but the situation was temporarily adjusted through two rounds of "90-day tariff truces."

Following President Trump's executive order signed on the 11th of last month, the US and China are conducting trade negotiations while maintaining their existing reciprocal tariffs of 30 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

On April 4th, China pressured the Trump administration by imposing export controls on seven of the 17 rare earth elements to the United States. In exchange for lifting those restrictions, China secured export permits for Nvidia's H20 AI chips. China, which dominates the rare earth supply chain, has made no secret of its willingness to use the rare earths weaponization card against the United States at any time.

Given that the US-China delegations to the Madrid summit are centered on economic and trade issues, there are speculations that issues such as the South China Sea territorial dispute and the Taiwan issue will not be addressed in earnest.

In this regard, the US and China are expected to hold further discussions through defense and diplomatic channels.

However, it is expected that it will not be easy for the United States, which has opposed China's claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea with its commitment to "freedom of navigation," to find common ground.

Regarding the Taiwan issue, the prevailing view is that a one-sided 'agenda coordination' ahead of the US-China summit will be impossible, given that the US cannot tolerate China's will to unify the island by force.

--IANS

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