China’s Xi Jinping will take centre stage at an annual gathering of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea on Friday, expected to hold talks with Canadian, Japanese and Thai counterparts after securing a fragile trade truce with US President Donald Trump. That agreement, struck just before Trump left South Korea, skipping the main two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, will suspend further curbs on China’s exports of rare earths that threatened to jam up global supply chains. Bolstering supply chains is a key focus of this year’s APEC talks, hosted in the historic town of Gyeongju. The 21-member economic club ... (full story)