The ability to verify China’s compliance with its own agreements is not a technical detail but the foundation of trust between Beijing and Washington.
By JIANLI YANG – Nov 12, 2025
The US-China summit at APEC in Gyeongju, South Korea, achieved what both leaders wanted most urgently: a pause in an escalating trade war that had begun to hurt both economies and unsettle global markets. Yet beneath the veneer of progress lies a structural flaw—an asymmetry in verifiability that works to America’s disadvantage.
While the United States made concessions that are transparent, measurable, and reversible, China’s pledges are vague, discretionary, and resistant to monitoring. This imbalance not only weakens the durability of the trade truce but also exposes a deeper problem in US-China economic diplomacy. Washington tends to trust verbal commitments from Beijing more than Beijing trusts American enforcement power.
President Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One before the summit, expressed confidence that President Xi Jinping would “work very hard to stop the flow [of fentanyl]” and that “he is a tremendous leader of a very powerful country and I give great respect to him.” The remark reflected Trump’s characteristic faith in personal relationships and deal-making instincts. He has long preferred to treat high diplomacy as an extension of business negotiation, where trust between leaders can substitute for institutional safeguards.
Yet in the US-China context, such confidence is unwarranted. China’s track record—both in the implementation of the Phase One Trade Agreement signed in January 2020 and in its behavior since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001—suggests a consistent pattern of partial compliance, selective interpretation, and strategic delay… [Continue Reading]
Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/on-china-trade-issues-trust-needs-verification