The state of the U.S.-China conflict
In this commentary, Adam Tooze analyzes Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s speech during the IMF-World Bank meetings on the economic relation with China. Here are some interesting points:
- Yellen argues that China can grow without threatening American economic leadership but the U.S. national security is of paramount importance in the relationship with China.
- Yellen insists that U.S. measures against China will be tightly targeted but those targeted measures have so far included efforts to hobble the world leader in 5G technology, Huawei, sanctions against the entire chip supply chain, and the inclusion of most major research universities in China on America’s entities list that strictly limits trade.
All the while, Tooze argues, China and India seem to aspire to a fundamental reordering of world affairs such that American talk of leadership is retired forever.
Does China not understand that it owes its growth to an American-led order? To rebel against that order, Yellen says quite openly, is not in China’s interest. Yellen is right that conflict between China and the United States is not inevitable. It does depend on the moves that both sides make. But it is hard to see how her vision, in which the United States arrogates to itself the right to define which trajectory of Chinese economic growth is and is not acceptable, can possibly be a basis for peace.
US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart
By: Chad P. Bown – PIIE
America Has Dictated Its Economic Peace Terms to China
By: Adam Tooze – Columbia University
