Is trade conflict with China beginning to broaden into something bigger and more long-lasting? It would appear so.
Most striking is that even long-standing China doves are now echoing the language of old-guard hawks, who have long viewed trade with China as a zero-sum game.
China itself hardly qualifies as a paragon of free trade.
In a broader sense, China has not conformed to the expected Western script.
The latter is occurring because of concerns that "China is co-opting institutions such as the UN and the WTO to make them safe for authoritarianism, state-backed capitalism and other threats to a rules-based order." As the magazine notes, the Western figures leading this charge are not just anti-China trade hawks, but "Ex-doves [who] agree that 20 years of patiently cajoling China to change has not worked."
Modern China has never been a liberal democracy, but the earlier introduction of term limits for Communist Party political posts provided a check or, at the very least, introduced a degree of limited accountability, had Xi been forced to hand over the presidency to some new leader in 2022.
If the West continues to perceive China as a security threat to be managed, rather than a friend in need, it is hard not to imagine yet more tension or outright conflict, breaking out in the years ahead from the resultant fallout.
http://www.atimes.com/all-of-our-bets-on-china-have-been-wrong/
Most striking is that even long-standing China doves are now echoing the language of old-guard hawks, who have long viewed trade with China as a zero-sum game.
China itself hardly qualifies as a paragon of free trade.
In a broader sense, China has not conformed to the expected Western script.
The latter is occurring because of concerns that "China is co-opting institutions such as the UN and the WTO to make them safe for authoritarianism, state-backed capitalism and other threats to a rules-based order." As the magazine notes, the Western figures leading this charge are not just anti-China trade hawks, but "Ex-doves [who] agree that 20 years of patiently cajoling China to change has not worked."
Modern China has never been a liberal democracy, but the earlier introduction of term limits for Communist Party political posts provided a check or, at the very least, introduced a degree of limited accountability, had Xi been forced to hand over the presidency to some new leader in 2022.
If the West continues to perceive China as a security threat to be managed, rather than a friend in need, it is hard not to imagine yet more tension or outright conflict, breaking out in the years ahead from the resultant fallout.
http://www.atimes.com/all-of-our-bets-on-china-have-been-wrong/
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