Washington's announcement of visa bans for Chinese officials linked to mass detentions of Muslims in Xinjiang - on the eve of a new round of trade talks - is a now-familiar tactic of raising the pressure in the hopes that Beijing will make concessions.
But applying such leverage only reduces the already-slim chance of any breakthrough when Vice-Premier Liu He meets his US trade counterparts - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and trade representative Robert Lighthizer - on Thursday (Oct 10), Chinese experts said.
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