INTERNATIONAL

China Blames U.S. for Failure of Trade Talks: China blamed Washington for the failure of Sino-American trade talks last weekend and accused the United States of making excessive demands. “Despite the sincere approach of the Chinese side in the talks, no agreement was reached between the two sides as a result of the excessive demands raised by the U.S. side regardless of existing international norms,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade. Washington has said it will slap punitive tariffs of 100% on hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods if Beijing does not give in to U.S. demands on the protection of copyrights, patents and trademarks by Jan. 16.