A critic of the returning Lord Macartney delegation from Britain to China in 1793 aptly noted that they had been treated with ceremony, entertained royally, and flattered in excess by Qianlong Emperor—and yet returned empty handed. This must rank as one of the earliest examples of the travails of seeking to do business with China.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump did not quite return empty-handed following a hotly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping . He won promises from Beijing that it will clamp down on fentanyl , and in turn pledged to cut the 20% “fentanyl tariff” on all Chinese goods in half. He also won promises from China to buy 12 million metric tons of American soybeans this year. And he managed to get China to lift export controls on rare earths th

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