Trade remains strong despite concerns about competition

Economic experts said that commercial ties had changed from collaboration to competition in a recent session honoring the 45-year diplomatic heritage between the US and China. They also suggested that governments should take a more strategic approach to risk management. Since China and the US established diplomatic relations in 1979, the commercial relationship has frequently been referred to as the foundation of bilateral ties, and throughout the past 45 years, the win-win ideology has been a pillar of that history. Since China opened up to the world and began to reform, there has been a significant increase in the economic interdependence between the US and China.

Anna Ashton, director of China corporate affairs and US-China at Eurasia Group in New York, stated that there has been a clear “philosophical shift” in the US away from the idea that economic interdependence is beneficial for conflict deterrence and toward the idea that economic interdependence increases vulnerability at the forum held last week by The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The US and Chinese economies were once mostly complementary, but that is quickly changing, according to Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and head of research at the Hong Kong-based financial research firm Gavekal Dragonomics. This was the case 15 or even 10 years ago. According to him, Chinese businesses are now viewed as “direct competitors” of US businesses, particularly “in the cutting-edge industries.”

In the early years of China’s opening-up, the commercial partnership has proven to be a crucial pillar of US-China ties, according to Ka Zeng, an academic and the director of international and global studies at the University of Arkansas. However, politicians in the US have blamed China for “a host of economic problems” as a result of the country’s growing economic interdependence, according to Zeng. “This has paved the ground for (former US) president (Donald) Trump to launch the great trade war against China,” she stated. “It is an important political implication in the trade relationship when the (US) threatened to impose sanctions against China for its ‘unfair’ trade practices.”