| Hi, this is Philip Glamann in Beijing. Sometimes the news can be a gut punch. This week I was bummed to learn that the Taiwanese dumpling chain Din Tai Fung would close a bunch of stores in China, where restaurants are fighting savage price wars to attract consumers dealing with a slowing economy. Din Tai Fung has been a Sunday go-to for me, especially when I pulled an extra shift. An order of shaomai, dumplings, glass noodle soup and sometimes those chocolate xiaolongbao always did me right.  Diners at a Din Tai Fung restaurant in Shanghai. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg But it was also relatively expensive. It was easy to run up a bill of say 500 yuan ($70) or more for two people. For some folks dealing with pay cuts and dimmer job prospects, that expense could be hard to justify, especially when there's lots of good options in the 100 yuan range. Din Tai Fung said the decision to close stores was related to an expiring business license, but there's abundant signs that Chinese consumers are getting picky about price — going so far as to snap up cheaper near-replicas of some of the world's most top fashion staples. Even companies doing well seem worried. Meituan — whose shares surged this week on better earnings and a share buyback — sounded a note of caution on the second half of 2024. Founder Wang Xing said the meal delivery leader was mulling ways to make money off consumers looking for inexpensive options. Someone else who might have felt like they took a gut punch this week was Colin Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings, which owns e-commerce app Temu. Huang saw his reign as China's richest person last about two weeks as PDD shares slumped on a warning from the CEO that the firm's current trajectory wasn't sustainable. Zhong Shanshan, founder of Nongfu Spring, can commiserate. He lost some $3 billion in wealth as the beverage giant's shares tumbled. Those stock slides are red flags for the $17 trillion Chinese economy, which has had an uneven recovery this year. Factories are busy churning out goods, yet youth unemployment remains high. Consumers and businesses remain gloomy. Chinese policymakers have been slow to do much to turn the latter issues around but there are signs the public is unhappy. Instances of dissent jumped 18% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier, said China Dissent Monitor at Freedom House, a US advocacy group. The majority of events were linked to economic issues, it added. While there's little to indicate that the unrest poses a threat to the leadership in Beijing, the ruling Communist Party could soon face bigger problems running the nation of 1.4 billion people, if things don't change. What We're Reading, Listening to and Watching: Whatever their differences, China and the US are still talking to keep their relationship from going off the rails. This week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan headed to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping, top diplomat Wang Yi and a senior general. During a one-hour encounter with Xi, Sullivan reaffirmed the US's desire to prevent competition between the superpowers "from veering into conflict." Xi called on Washington to view his nation's growth as an opportunity. Sullivan's talks with Wang were longer and more substantive, continuing a pattern of meetings every few months between them as part of a push to ensure lines of communication stay open. The list of disagreements between the two sides is formidable. Wang raised Washington's arms sales to Taiwan and the US's ever-expanding curbs on Chinese tech ambitions. He reasserted Beijing's claims to nearly all of the South China Sea, where this week the US said it was open to escorting Philippine vessels locked in recurring confrontations with Chinese ships.  Jake Sullivan and Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday. Photographer: NG HAN GUAN/Getty Images Sullivan laid out the US's security concerns, desire for stability in the region and worries about China's support for Russia with the war in Ukraine now in its third year. The visit comes as the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to become the next US president heats up – along with the usual China-bashing by the candidates and their running mates. Beijing will be watching the contest with interest given Trump has pledged to ramp up tariffs and Harris would likely build on President Joe Biden's China strategy, which has focused on limiting its semiconductor advances. Sullivan indicated that the US will in fact stay the course on that strategy. While he was leaving town, Bloomberg News reported that the Netherlands plans to limit ASML's ability to repair and maintain its chip equipment in China. Sullivan also highlighted Harris's role in helping shape Asia-Pacific policy as VP and said she was familiar with Xi and other leaders in Beijing. Those remarks seemed aimed at addressing worries the Democratic nominee lacks foreign policy expertise. The US under Biden and Harris has also slapped levies on Chinese electric vehicles, something Canada did just before Sullivan's trip. Sullivan and Wang appeared to make progress on a call between Biden and Xi, possibly in the next few weeks. The presidents could meet at a Group of 20 or APEC summit, though it is unclear whether that will happen. Underscoring just how bad China-US ties have been, if Biden doesn't visit China before leaving office, he'd be the first US leader to skip the Asian nation since Jimmy Carter, whose tenure ended four decades ago. Still, the two sides are talking and will talk some more. US climate czar John Podesta, the US's point person in climate issues, appears set to meet next week with Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenmin. | 
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