Highlights of This Month’s Edition:

• Bilateral Trade: The U.S. trade deficit in goods with China totaled $37.9 billion in November 2018, a 6.9 percent increase over November 2017; in Q3 2018, U.S. services exports to China grew 2.4 percent but the pace of growth for exports and imports has steadily declined since 2016.

• Bilateral Policy Issues: In 2018, Chinese FDI to the United States reached $4.8 billion, 83.4 percent drop year-on-year, while Chinese venture capital investments in the United States reached record levels.

• Quarterly Review of China’s Economy: China’s economy grew 6.6 percent year-on-year in 2018—the weakest annual pace since 1990—as the effects of China’s deleveraging campaign and trade tensions with the United States start to take a toll; state-owned enterprises enjoyed strong profits in 2018 despite a general economic slowdown, benefiting from the private sector credit crunch and renewed government support; the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences reports China’s declining housing prices slowed toward the end of 2018, though prices in Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities continued to fall.