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PARIS — France and China will sign trade deals worth billions of euros on Monday during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping but Paris will also take the opportunity to push back against Beijing’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.

President Emmanuel Macron wants to forge a united European front to confront Beijing’s advances.

After he and Xi meet later on Monday, the two will hold further talks on Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, heads of the EU executive.

Xi arrived in France after visiting Italy, the first Western power to endorse China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative as Rome tries to revive its struggling economy.

The Belt and Road Initiative plan, championed by Xi, aims to link China by sea and land with Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the old Silk Road.

France says Silk Road cooperation must work in both directions.

An official in Macron’s office said significant progress was expected in terms of opening up the Chinese market for some farm goods, especially poultry.

French officials have also expressed the hope that a multibillion dollar deal for China to buy dozens of Airbus planes could be finalised.

In a column in Le Figaro published on Sunday, Xi made clear he wanted Paris to cooperate in the Belt and Road project, calling for more trade and investment in sectors ranging from nuclear energy, aeronautics and agriculture.

“French investors are welcome to share development opportunities in China. I also hope that Chinese companies can do better in France and make a greater contribution to its economic and social development,” he wrote.

French officials describe China as both a challenge and partner, saying France must remain especially vigilant over any Chinese attempts to appropriate foreign technology for its own means.

The EU is already weighing a more defensive strategy on China, spurred by Beijing’s slowness in opening up its economy, Chinese takeovers in critical sectors, and a feeling in European capitals that Beijing has not stood up for free trade.

“An awakening was necessary,” Macron said in Brussels on Friday. “For many years we had an uncoordinated approach and China took advantage of our divisions.”

As part of efforts to push that approach, Macron will host Merkel and Juncker on Tuesday to meet with Xi to move away from a purely bilateral approach to ties.

 “Macron is not happy to see China win so many prizes in Rome, so he has invented a bizarre European format by inviting Merkel and Juncker as a counterbalance to show that he is the driving force behind European integration,” said one Paris-based Asian diplomat.

RABAT — About 10,000 teachers staged a new protest in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday to demand permanent jobs, hours after police had used water cannon to disperse an overnight demonstration.

The teachers, many of whom had spent the night in the streets of Rabat after the first event, marched from the education ministry to the square in front of Parliament where police had intervened after midnight to prevent them from spending the night in the main Mohammed V Avenue.

They want an end to renewable contracts in favour of permanent jobs that offer civil service benefits, including a better retirement pension.

Morocco, which has avoided the turmoil seen by other countries during and after the Arab Spring of 2011, regularly sees protests though they rarely draw several thousands or involve confrontations with police.

The protest was organised by an alliance of leftist opposition parties, main unions, civil society organisations and university students. The teachers have been striking for three weeks in a row.

The protesting teachers were threatened by the ministry to return to the classroom or be sacked.

“We are not intimidated by the threats of the education ministry’s because we came to claim our right to be integrated in the civil service and defend the public school,” Abdelilah Taloua, a young teacher, told Reuters.

About 55,000 teachers have been hired under the new contract system since 2016 out of 240,000 teachers in total.

The government insists that teachers working by contracts have the same starting salary of 5,000 dirhams (around $520) like regular teachers.

Morocco has come under pressure from international lenders to trim the civil service wage bill and strengthen the efficiency of the public sector.

WASHINGTON/JAKARTA — A US lawmaker on Friday urged current or former Boeing Co. and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees to come forward with any information about the certification programme for the 737 MAX, which has suffered two fatal crashes in five months.

Boeing and the FAA are under global regulatory scrutiny over software and training on the signature aircraft. Boeing risked losing a $6 billion order for the jet on Friday, its first since the world's entire fleet was grounded last week. 

Indonesian airline Garuda said it plans to scrap its order because some passengers are afraid to board the plane, although industry analysts said the deal was already in doubt.

In the United States, the Chairman of the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Peter DeFazio urged people to use the committee's whistleblower web page. 

"It is imperative we continue to ensure we have the highest level of safety for the travelling public," DeFazio said.

American Airlines pilots were preparing to test Boeing's planned software upgrade for an anti-stall system on MAX simulators this weekend, saying they want their own safety guarantees on the software fix.

The 737 MAX was Boeing's fastest selling jet before an Ethiopian Airlines crash near Addis Ababa on March 10, which followed a Lion Air crash in Indonesia on October 29.

Ethiopian and French investigators have pointed to "clear similarities" between the two crashes, which killed 346 people, putting pressure on Boeing and US regulators to come up with an adequate fix. No direct link has been proven between the crashes but attention has focused on whether pilots had the correct information about the "angle of attack" at which the wing slices through the air.

Ethiopia has shared limited information with foreign investigators, Reuters reported on Thursday, and an industry source said Boeing had not yet received any black box and voice recorder data.

Meanwhile, US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, on Friday raised concerns in a letter to the FAA about regulations that allow aircraft manufacturers to effectively self-certify the safety of their planes and "left the fox guarding the henhouse".

The FAA declined to comment.

The US Justice Department opened a separate investigation this week. The FBI has declined comment.

Garuda CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Friday: "many passengers told us they were afraid to get on a MAX 8." 

However, the airline had been reconsidering its order for 49 of the narrowbody jets before the Ethiopian crash, including potentially swapping some for widebody Boeing models. 

Southeast Asia faces a glut of narrowbody aircraft like the 737 MAX and rival Airbus A320neo at a time of slowing global economic growth and high fuel costs. 

"They have been re-looking at their fleet plan anyway so this is an opportunity to make some changes that otherwise may be difficult to do," CAPA Centre for Aviation Chief Analyst Brendan Sobie said.

Indonesia's Lion Air has also said it might cancel 737 MAX aircraft, though industry sources say it is also struggling to absorb the number of planes on order.

Retrofits 

Boeing now plans to make compulsory a light to alert pilots when sensor readings of the angle of attack do not match — meaning at least one must be wrong —, according to two officials briefed on the matter. 

Investigators suspect a faulty angle-of-attack reading led the doomed Lion Air jet's computer to believe it had stalled, prompting its anti-stall system, called MCAS, repeatedly to push the plane's nose down.

Norwegian Air played down the significance of the compulsory light, saying that, according to Boeing, it would not have been able to prevent erroneous signals that Lion Air pilots received before their new 737 MAX plane crashed in October.

Boeing must be cautious with how it characterises the safety alert, risking legal claims by saying it could have made a difference in the crash while not wanting to suggest that the retrofit is meaningless, legal experts said.

The Lion Air plane did not have the warning light installed, and Ethiopian Airlines did not immediately comment on whether its crashed plane had the alert.

But the Ethiopian carrier, whose reputation along with Boeing's is at stake, issued a statement on Friday emphasising the modernity of its safety and training systems, with more than $500 million invested in infrastructure in the past five years.

The Ethiopian crash has set off one of the widest inquiries in aviation history and cast a shadow over the Boeing 737 MAX model intended to be a standard for decades.

Boeing did not comment on the plan to make the safety feature standard, but separately said it was moving quickly to make software changes and expected the upgrade to be approved by the FAA in coming weeks.

Experts said the change needs regulatory approval and could take weeks or months. Regulators in Europe and Canada have said they will conduct their own reviews of any new systems.

Boeing shares have fallen 14 per cent since the Ethiopian crash.

CHICAGO/SINGAPORE — Pressure mounted on Boeing Co. in Washington as US lawmakers called for executives to testify about two crashed 737 MAX jets, even as the world's biggest planemaker worked to return the grounded fleet to the skies.

A Senate panel plans to schedule a hearing with Boeing at an unspecified date, officials said, the first time a US congressional committee has called the company's executives to appear for questioning over the crashes.

The same panel, the Senate Commerce subcommittee on aviation and space, will also question Federal Aviation Administration  (FAA) officials on March 27, likely about why the regulator agreed to certify the MAX planes in March 2017 without requiring extensive additional training.

The Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 that killed all 157 on board has set off one of the widest investigations in aviation history. Initial reports from investigators say there are clear similarities between the crash and the Lion Air accident that killed all 189 crew and passengers in November. 

While no direct link has yet been established, the MCAS flight control software and related pilot training are at the centre of the investigation, and US lawmakers are questioning the FAA certification of MAX's safety.

Boeing has promised a swift update to the MCAS, and the FAA said the installation of new software and related training was a priority.

However, extra computer-based training will be required after the software update, the pilot union of MAX's biggest customer, Southwest Airlines Co. said on Wednesday, becoming the first major airline union to comment. 

Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association said it had previewed the proposed Boeing training, including a required test, which would be mandatory for Southwest pilots before flying the 737 MAX again.

A Boeing spokeswoman said training on the software update would be provided by the manufacturer, but declined to disclose further details.

Regulators in Europe and Canada have said, however, they will seek their own guarantees of the MAX's safety. 

Mounting scrutiny

The Ethiopian Airlines crash has shaken the global aviation industry and cast a shadow over the Boeing model intended to be a standard for decades to come.

Investigators examining the Lion Air crash are weighing how the MCAS system ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether the pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency, among other factors.

MCAS is meant to prevent a loss of lift which can cause an aerodynamic stall and send the plane downwards in an uncontrolled way.

The pilots of the doomed Lion Air flight scrambled through a handbook to understand why the jet was lurching downwards in the final minutes before it hit the water, three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents said.

Indonesian investigators said the cockpit voice recorder information was leaked to the media and they were due to hold a news conference at 0830 GMT on Thursday.

Boeing has said there was a documented procedure to handle the problem.

The company was sued on Wednesday in federal court in Chicago by the estate of one of the Lion Air crash victims in which the plaintiffs referred to the Ethiopian crash to support a wrongful death claim against the company. 

A Boeing spokesman said the company does not respond to, or comment on, questions concerning legal matters.

The Seattle Times reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was joining the investigation into the MAX's certification. An FBI spokeswoman in Seattle would neither confirm nor deny that it was a part of any investigation.

Criminal prosecutors at the US Justice Department, who are also investigating the FAA's oversight of Boeing, have issued multiple subpoenas to Boeing, CNN reported, citing sources briefed on the matter.

For now, more than 350 MAX aircraft are grounded, and deliveries of nearly 5,000, worth more than $500 billion, are on hold. Boeing's shares have fallen 11 per cent since the Ethiopian Airlines crash, wiping $26 billion from its market value.

BRUSSELS — Alphabet unit Google was fined 1.49 billion euros ($1.7 billion) on Wednesday, its third large EU antitrust penalty in two years marking the company’s decade-long regulatory battle in Europe.

The European Union antitrust chief, however, gave a cautious welcome to Google’s measures to boost competition and give Android users a choice of browsers and search apps, suggesting the company’s regulatory woes may be coming to an end.

The European Commission, which said the fine amounted to 1.29 per cent of Google’s turnover in 2018, said that the case focused on the company’s illegal practises in search advertising brokering from 2006 to 2016.

“Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told a news conference.

She said its actions meant advertisers and website owners had less choice and likely faced higher prices that would then be passed on to consumers.

The case concerned websites, such as of newspaper or travel sites, with a search function that produces search results and search adverts. Google’s AdSense for Search provided such search adverts. 

The misconduct included stopping publishers from placing any search adverts from competitors on their search results pages, forcing them to reserve the most profitable space on these pages for Google’s adverts and a requirement to seek written approval from Google before making changes to how rival adverts were displayed.

Thriving markets 

The AdSense advertising case was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010. Both companies subsequently dropped complaints against each other in 2016. 

Google said it was taking action to comply with EU orders in two previous cases, one of which concerned its Android mobile operating system that resulted in a record 4.34 billion euro fine last year while the shopping comparison case led to a 2.42 billion euro fine.

“We’ve always agreed that healthy, thriving markets are in everyone’s interest. We’ve already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the commission’s concerns,” Kent Walker, senior vice-president of global affairs, said in a statement.

“Over the next few months, we’ll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe,” he added.

Vestager welcomed the move, saying: “We see positive developments both in the shopping and Android case.”

Google’s foe, the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, said regulators should stay vigilant.

“Competitors have withered or died. It’s time for the EU and governments around the world to step in and address the underlying wrong,” its chairman Michael Weber said in a statement. 

OSLO — Norsk Hydro, one of the world's largest producers of aluminium, was battling on Tuesday to contain a cyber attack which hit parts of its production, sending its shares lower.

The company shut several metal extrusion plants, which transform aluminium ingots into components for carmakers, builders and other industries, while its giant smelters in countries including Norway, Qatar and Brazil were being operated manually.

The attack, which began on Monday evening and escalated overnight, affected the company's IT systems for most of its activities.

"Hydro is working to contain and neutralise the attack, but does not yet know the full extent of the situation," the company said in a statement.

It added that the attack had not affected the safety of its staff and it was too early to assess the impact on customers.

The event was a rare case of an attack on industrial operations in Norway. The last publicly-acknowledged cyber attack in the Nordic country was on software firm Visma, when hackers working on behalf of Chinese intelligence breached its network to steal secrets from its clients.

Companies and governments have become increasingly concerned about the damage hackers can cause to industrial systems and critical national infrastructure following a number of high-profile cyber attacks in recent years.

In 2017, attacks later blamed by the United States on Russia and North Korea caused millions of dollars of damage to companies worldwide, crippling computers in industries from shipping to sweet making. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the allegations.

In Ukraine, meanwhile, authorities have seen hackers knock electricity grids and transport systems offline, and an attack on Italian oil services firm Saipem late last year destroyed more than 300 of the company's computers. 

From cars to construction 

Hydro makes products across the aluminium value chain, from the refinement of alumina raw material via metal ingots to bespoke components used in cars and the construction industry.

"Some extrusion plants that are easy to stop and start have chosen to temporarily shut production," said a Hydro spokesman.

The company's hydroelectric power plants were running as normal on isolated IT systems unaffected by the outage.

The Norwegian state agency in charge of cyber security said Hydro contacted them early on Tuesday and that it was assisting the company.

"We are... sharing this information with other sectors in Norway and with our international partners," said a spokeswoman for the Norwegian National Security Authority. She declined to comment on the nature of the attack.

Norsk Hydro's main website page was unavailable on Tuesday, although some of the web pages belonging to subsidiaries could still be accessed. The company was giving updates on the situation on its Facebook page.

"Hydro's main priority now is to limit the effects of the attack and to ensure continued people safety," it wrote in a Facebook post.

Hydro's shares fell 3.4 per cent in early trade before a partial recovery to trade down 0.9 per cent by 11:21 GMT. It was still lagging the Oslo benchmark index, which was up 0.9 per cent.

Hydro, which has 36,000 employees in 40 countries, recorded sales of 159.4 billion crowns ($18.7 billion) last year, with a net profit of 4.3 billion crowns.

BAKU — Major oil producers led by Saudi Arabia agreed on Monday to keep working together to prop up crude prices, but said they would decide only in June on whether to extend production cuts.

Meeting in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, members of the OPEC+ alliance said they would continue coordinating efforts to “stabilise” the oil market through production cutbacks.

But they postponed a planned April meeting and said a decision would be made in June on whether to extend production cuts into the second half of 2019, once the impact of US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela is more clear.

In a joint statement after the talks, members of the alliance stressed the need to “restore market stability and prevent the recurrence of any market imbalance” — shorthand for keeping prices from dropping too low.

The 24-nation alliance came together in 2016, when the Saudi-dominated Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia agreed on the need to limit production in the face of tumbling prices.

The OPEC+ alliance has endured, with regular meetings and agreements to extend production limits, helping oil prices rise from around $40 per barrel in 2016 to an average of $70 per barrel last year.

The meeting in Baku brought together the group’s monitoring committee to review the latest extension, which saw OPEC+ nations agree to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day from January to June.

The committee was due to meet again next month, but on Monday that meeting was postponed until May. 

The joint statement also said that the decision “on the production target for the second half of 2019” would be taken at an OPEC Conference meeting on June 25.

New OPEC+ committee members 

The move to wait until June took place amid confusion over the impact of US sanctions on OPEC members Iran and Venezuela, with Russia saying more time was needed due to high volatility.

Addressing Monday’s meeting, Saudi energy minister Khalid Al Falih urged OPEC+ members to maintain the alliance.

“It is more important than ever that we continue to collaborate,” he said.

OPEC, and mainly Saudi Arabia, have made it clear they would like to formalise longer-term cooperation with Russia, though Moscow has been hesitant.

Falih raised the issue again in Baku, saying that “institutionalising a framework for longer-term cooperation” was very important.

The alliance said after the talks that Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates had also become new members of the committee.

The pact has breathed fresh life into OPEC and brought Russia new influence as an arbiter on the oil market. 

Creating the alliance was not an easy decision after years of fierce competition for market share that lead to overproduction.

Uncertainty over US sanctions 

Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said it was hard to plan for months ahead because of the volatility due to the sanctions against Iran and Venezuela.

“We have to take these uncertainties into account in making decisions on the market,” he was quoted as saying ahead of Monday’s meeting.

US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a nuclear accord with Iran in May last year and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

From late April, US companies and citizens will be barred from dealing in Venezuelan crude, as Washington ramps up punishment against President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

But Trump has also urged OPEC to take steps to lower prices, saying in a tweet last month: “Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy.”

The Saudi energy minister was defiant in response, saying at the time that OPEC was pursuing a measured response and that he was leaning towards extending production cuts in the second half of 2019.

Host Azerbaijan is one of the alliance’s non-OPEC members and analysts said the ex-Soviet republic has used its participation to court investment in its oil sector. 

After years of growth, Azerbaijan’s oil and gas production is stabilising.

Analysts at S&P Global Platts said the country is forging closer ties with Riyadh and in recent weeks hosted several Saudi delegations.

Azerbaijan “needs to attract new investment if it is to successfully replace current reserves and maintain production volumes over the next few decades,” they said.

PARIS — Workers began cleaning up the Champs Elysees in Paris on Sunday after rioters ransacked stores and restaurants in a new flare-up of violence linked to the yellow vest protest movement.

Cutting short a weekend ski trip, President Emmanuel Macron returned to Paris late on Saturday for a crisis meeting with ministers at which he ordered decisions to be taken rapidly “so this doesn’t happen again”, Reuters reported.

Some 80 shops and businesses on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris were vandalised this weekend when “yellow vest” protesters went on the rampage, with about 20 looted or torched, retailers said on Sunday.

Vandals left hardly a storefront or cafe unscathed on Saturday, breaking windows and looting luxury stores as they clashed with riot police.

Saturday’s demonstrations were characterised by a sharp increase in violence after weeks of dwindling turnout, with hooded protesters looting and torching shops along the famed avenue, according to the Agence France-Presse.

It was the 18th consecutive weekend of demonstrations which began in mid-November as a protest against fuel price hikes but have since morphed into a potent anti-government movement.

“There was a wave of violence; we’re dealing with the aftermath of the chaos. We’re trying to reassure all the employees and then there are those who live here, too,” said Jean-Noel Reinhardt, head of the Committee Champs-Elysees, a local association with 180 members, most of them businesses. 

He said residents and business owners were pushing for talks with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe “to share our exasperation and explain our complaints. “

“The authorities must put an end to this situation,” he insisted.

Since the beginning, the prestigious avenue, which is known for its shops, cafes and luxury boutiques, has been the focal point for the demonstrations which have often turned violent, sparking running battles between police and protesters. 

On Saturday, the police appeared overrun as protesters swarmed the area, vandalising and later setting fire to Fouquet’s brasserie, a favourite hangout of the rich and famous for the past century — as well as luxury handbag store Longchamp.

Clothing outlets Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Celio were also damaged, as well as a bank, a chocolatier and several newsstands. 

“Enough is enough. And this Saturday went too far!” raged Bernard Stalter, president of CMA France, a national network of chambers of trades and crafts. 

He also demanded a meeting with top ministers “this week in order to find solutions which will put an end to a situation which has become as volatile as it is unacceptable.”

BEIJING — The Chinese government has additional monetary policy measures that it can take to support economic growth this year, and will even cut "its own flesh" to help finance large-scale tax cuts, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

China has promised billions of dollars in tax cuts and infrastructure spending to help businesses and protect jobs, as economic momentum is expected to cool further due to softer domestic demand and the trade war with the United States.

Li's comments suggest Beijing is ready to roll out more stimulus measures to ensure the economy grows within a targeted range of 6 to 6.5 per cent. Gross domestic product grew 6.6 per cent in 2018 — the least in 28 years.

Shares on Chinese stock exchanges climbed after the government reaffirmed its commitment to boosting growth. The yuan recovered from a three-week low against the dollar after Li's comments. 

"Of course, we are faced with many uncertain factors this year. We have to prepare more and we have reserved policy room [to address uncertainties]," Li told a news conference after the annual parliament meeting ended.

"Moreover, we can deploy quantity-based or price-based policy tools such as reserve requirements and interest rates. This is not monetary easing but to more effectively support the real economy."

The support measures rolled out so far are taking time to kick in and most analysts believe activity may not convincingly stabilise until the middle of the year. 

The central bank has cut banks' reserve requirement ratios (RRR) five times over the past year, with a two-stage RRR cut in January releasing a total of 1.5 trillion yuan ($223.23 billion) into the financial system.

Further cuts in RRR had been widely expected this year, after fresh data pointed to persistently soft demand in the Asian economic giant, raising fears of a sharper slowdown. 

Sources told Reuters in February that the central bank is not yet ready to cut benchmark interest rates to spur the slowing economy, but is likely to cut market-based rates.

The premier said the government would take multiple measures to lower funding costs for small and micro firms by 1 percentage point this year. 

An across-the-board cut in borrowing costs could also risk another flare-up in debt and speculative activity like that in the wake of the 2008-9 global financial crisis.

Cutting taxes, 

slitting wrists 

To help finance the tax cuts, the government would need to tighten its belt, Li said. 

China will bolster its national coffers by collecting more of the profits earned by some financial institutions and centrally-owned firms, while general expenditure will be cut, Li said. 

That will collectively cover 1 trillion yuan of the government's planned tax cuts, he said. 

"Large-scale tax cuts and fee reductions would affect the government, cutting its own flesh," Li said. "This kind of reform is equivalent to turning one's blade inward and slitting one's wrist."

Promised cuts in value-added tax (VAT) for manufacturing and other sectors will take effect from April 1, while social security fees will be reduced from May 1, Li said. 

The premier announced on March 5 that the VAT for the manufacturing sector would be cut to 13 per cent from 16 per cent. VAT for the transport and construction sectors will be reduced to 9 per cent from 10 per cent.

Li's comments "reconfirm a consistent pro-growth stance, with clarity on fiscal easing and an earlier-than-expected effective date for tax cuts", Morgan Stanley said in a note, adding that it expects improved growth from the second quarter.

Beijing's tax cut efforts have focused on the manufacturing sector and small businesses that are vital for economic growth and employment. Li said the government hopes to create 13 million jobs this year, the same as last year. 

"Not allowing the economy to slip out of a reasonable range, that is to say we will not allow waves of layoffs," said Li, adding the government will provide support to firms creating the most jobs. 

Data on Thursday showed that China's survey-based jobless rate rose to 5.3 per cent in February, from 4.9 per cent in December, partly due to job shedding by export-oriented companies.

Trade war 

China is still negotiating with the United States to resolve their trade frictions, Li said, adding both sides have far more shared interests than conflicts, and it would be "unrealistic" to decouple the world's two largest economies.

"We hope that the consultations will be fruitful and will achieve mutual benefit and win-win. I believe that this is also the expectation of the world," Li said. 

A summit to seal a trade deal between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will not happen at the end of March as previously discussed, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday.

Washington and Beijing have been locked in a tit-for-tat tariff battle as US presses China for an end to practices and policies it argues have given Chinese firms unfair advantages, including subsidising of industry, limits on access for foreign companies and alleged theft of intellectual property.

On Friday, China's parliament approved a new foreign investment law that promises to create a transparent environment for foreign firms, though there is scepticism about its enforceability.

The law, designed to ease concerns among foreign companies about the difficulties they face in China, will ban forced technology transfer and illegal government "interference" in foreign business practices. 

Li stressed that China did not, and would never, ask Chinese companies to spy on other countries. 

His comments came after increased international scrutiny of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which has been caught in the cross-fire as trade tensions ratcheted up.

BENGALURU — Facebook Inc. struggled to restore its services fully on Thursday after a 17-hour partial outage made the world's largest social network inaccessible to users across the globe, driving a wave of online complaints.

The number of reports on the crowd-sourced DownDetector website — one of the Internet's most used sources of numbers on outages — peaked at just over 12,000, gradually falling to a couple of hundreds by early on Thursday.

But with thousands of users complaining on Twitter under the hashtag #facebookdown, a number of media reports put the number affected in the millions. 

The BBC and a handful of other media outlets said it was the platform's longest ever outage. Reuters was not immediately able to verify those claims. 

Facebook representatives took to Twitter to update users on the problems. 

A Facebook spokesman, asked by Reuters for more details, would only repeat the company's initial statement on the outage on Wednesday, saying that it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. 

Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook apps were down for much of Wednesday, although the photo-sharing social network said it was back up early on Thursday.Facebook was yet to provide an update on its other services.

Social media users in some parts of the United States and Europe as well as in Japan were hit by the disruption, according to DownDetector's live outage map.

The Menlo Park, California-based company, which gets a vast majority of its revenue from advertising, told Bloomberg that it was still investigating the overall impact "including the possibility of refunds for advertisers".

On Twitter it also said that the matter was not related to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

In a DDoS attack, hackers use computer networks they control to send such a large number of requests for information from websites that servers that host them can no longer handle the traffic and the sites become unreachable.