As Donald Trump steps up his tariff threats against China, Beijing is moving to beat the next U.S. president to the punch with its own restrictions and get Washington to the negotiating table ahead of a full-blown trade war,

Chinese leaders met this week to plot economic policy for the coming year and sketched out plans to raise government spending and relax Beijing's monetary policy.

In the final year of Trump's term, the two nations agreed to a truce, signing a trade deal that scrapped some tariffs and reduced others. China also agreed to purchase an additional $200 billion in U.S. goods and services — a pledge it failed to fulfill.