What Do Trade and Industrial Cooperation Tell Us About the Rise of the Coal and Steel Community? A Lesson Learned from the Biden Administration

Actually, you probably haven’t heard this one before. Donald Trump does not have a plan to reduce America’s trade deficit. I’m talking instead about the sweeping new controls the Biden administration imposed last Friday on exports of technology to China — controls meant to constrain other advanced countries as well as the United States.

But it needs to be put in context. Recent events have undermined the view of globalization in Western policy. It is clear that despite global integration there are still dangerous bad actors out there. But it also gives good actors ways to limit bad actors’ ability to do harm. And the Biden administration is evidently taking these lessons to heart.

This was not supposed to happen. Some people believed that the world trade system had limits on protectionism because it promoted peace. The father of the system was Cordell Hull, the secretary of state of F.D.R. The Coal and Steel Community was created to make war impossible by binding European industry together.

The future of the tech rivalry: Xi Jinping’s view of the reunification of the Chinese island nation and the role of the bureaucracy

Xi Jinping is expected to break longstanding tradition in the coming days and secure a third term as China’s president, putting the country on a new course that could increase tensions with the U.S.

“He’s able to focus even more on implementing his foreign strategy and operationalizing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Sun said. “That inevitably will lead to more a contest for dominance in the United States and for influence in other countries.”

She expects that key positions in national security and foreign policy will be filled by politically loyalists of China’s president.

There are people within the government who do not believe that China’s policies toward the U.S. are the best, Sun said, but she predicts that those voices will be “eliminated from within the bureaucracy,” leaving China without a system of checks and balances.

“The bigger question is on the future of the tech rivalry,” said Bekink. “I don’t think the US will back down from its strong stance on containing China’s tech prowess. Tech was always a factor in the trade war.

Beijing has a claim over Taiwan that’s more important than a red line because the Chinese Communist Party never controlled a democracy. Xi views “reunification” with the island as a key unresolved issue on China’s path toward “great rejuvenation,” a sweeping vision he has vowed to achieve by 2049.

The U.S.-China Interplay and the Rise of China’s Technological Innovations: Biden and Xi Jinping Revisited

But that perception — and the resulting actions from the U.S., such as high-level congressional visits from the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has led to something of a catch-22 situation, Li said.

“You get this tit-for-tat retaliation where there’s not a lot of trust … and sort of a back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as responsive to China’s actions, [and] China views its actions as a response to the U.S.’s actions,” Li said.

The tech industry has become a bigger priority for China because they want to make China a modern socialist country by the year 2049, when the People’s Republic of China is scheduled to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

With this response from Washington, and China’s desire to increase its self-reliance, it’s likely that “this sort of strategic competition between technological capabilities, between supply chains, that’s going to accelerate,” Li said.

That’s led to what Li said is essentially an impasse. However, it’s not like progress cannot be achieved, only that it will test both countries in the years to come.

The upcoming meeting – the first in-person encounter between Biden and Xi since the US President took office – comes at a crucial time for both leaders. Having further consolidated his power at last month’s Communist Party Congress, Xi is heading into the meeting as the strongest Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Their in-person encounters went on after the new leader took office. The last time they met face to face was in 2015, during Xi’s first state visit to the US as China’s top leader.

Today, trust is running low, the rhetoric is increasingly antagonistic and disputes continue to fester in areas including trade, technology, security and ideology.

“There’s not going to be a joint statement of any sort here. A senior U.S. official told reporters this week that the meeting is not being driven by deliverables. “The president believes it is critical to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road that bound our competition.”

When Joe Biden and Xi Jinping first got to know each other more than 10 years ago, the US and China had been moving closer for three decades despite their differences.

“Hopefully the meeting can be used for more than just airing mutual grievances,” said Patricia Kim, a China expert at the Brookings Institution. Biden and XI have a joint declaration that they don’t oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons in Ukranian and the Korean Peninsula, as well as restart working-level exchanges on areas of common interest such as climate change and counter-narcotics.

Biden wants to lay out what each of the red lines are when he sits down with China’s president, but experts doubt that’s as straightforward as it sounds.

“Those who play with fire will perish by it. When the two leaders met virtually, Biden was warned that the US would be clear-eyed about this.

The Effect of the “Peaceful Reunification” of Taiwan on China’s Ambiguity about the U.S./China Relations

And in October, the Communist Party chief again reiterated that China’s preference would be for “peaceful reunification” but repeated that the use of force remains an option.

Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan in August. Beijing responded with sanctions and large-scale military exercises around the island.

Biden will try to convince Xi that Washington’s long- standing policy regarding Taiwan has not changed, and that the United States does not support Taiwan independence. The Republican Party is projected to take control of at least the House of Representatives after the October elections, so analysts say Xi is likely to remain skeptical.

“I think the Biden administration will be less flexible on China because it will be easier for them to win over the Chinese people,” says a professor of international relations.

If McCarthy becomes majority leader, he would like to visit Taiwan. Such a move could be disastrous, warns another Chinese expert on international relations.

“When Pelosi went, the Chinese lost face. Next time, maybe they will just take action,” says a Chinese expert on international affairs, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized by his university to speak to the media.

Chip War: The Fate of the Trade-Off Between China and the U.S.: Evidence from the Pelosi Visit to the United States

“Throughout the Cold War, there were a series of really tough export controls imposed on the Soviet Union by the U.S.,” says Chris Miller, author of the recently published Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. There’s a lot of similarities, to be honest.

In China’s case it is difficult to enforce the restrictions. Small chips are easy to smuggle across the border. In order to achieve total enforcement, other countries involved in the complex semiconductors supply chain need to be on board.

Experts think that theBali meeting could yield a commitment to open more channels of communication, if Biden and XI can muster the political will.

The Pelosi visit led to Beijing suspending cooperation in five areas, including climate change. The telephone relationship between China and the United States has been severely scaled back.

The lack of communication is a serious and dangerous problem, says Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kennedy claimed to be the “only think tanker from Washington that’s been to China since the outbreak of the Pandemic” after he visited China this fall.

There is a chance to take a bit of a gamble, since the Party Congress and the U.S. mid-term elections are over.

The U.S. and the South China Sea: Two Economic Leaders in the One and One-Loop Plan for a Possible G20 Summit

But Zhu warns that nobody should expect too much from this summit. A sincere discussion may help deepen understanding between the two leaders, he says — but that’s it.

The current situation is very similar to the 1950s and 1960s when distrust grew between the U.S. and Soviet Union, according to Medeiros.

“After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both sides, because of that incredibly searing experience, internalized the belief that strategic restraint, often institutionalized through things like arms control agreements, was in their mutual interests,” he says.

Biden said that he was looking forward to working with each of you to find solutions to challenges such as the South China Sea and to find innovative solutions to share challenges.

Against this backdrop of rising competition, and amid fears of a global recession, the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia on Monday.

There is a dispute in the South China Sea between the US and China, where the US claims it can fly and sail wherever international law allows. Sullivan suggested that the U.S. has a key role to play as a stabilizing force in the region and in the prevention of intimidation and harassment that would adversely affect the nations of the region.

“There’s a real demand signal for that,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday. Sullivan said, “I think the PRC would not love that fact, but they certainly acknowledge it and understand it.”

One new initiative related to those efforts that Biden will discuss Saturday focuses on maritime awareness, specifically using radio frequencies from commercial satellites to better track dark shipping and illegal fishing, Sullivan said.

The administration’s focus on demonstrating its investment in the south Pacific was showcased earlier this year when the White House hosted a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The White House has highlighted the commitment of the president and he appointed one of his aides, Yohannes Abraham, to be the official envoy to the region.

ASEAN this year is elevating the U.S. to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” status — a largely symbolic enhancement of their relationship but one that puts Washington on the same level as China, which was granted the distinction last year.

The military coup in February of 2021 that overthrew the ruling government led to the arrest of the democratically elected leader of the country. Biden stressed that the U.S. was committed to the return of democracy inMyanmar, a country that was deposed in a coup.

Biden, according to the White House, also pushed Hun Sen to release activists including Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who was convicted of treason as the prime minister’s long-running rule aimed to crack down on his opposition. The Whitehouse said that Biden raised concerns about activities at Ream Naval Base which Cambodian officials have characterized as a collaborative effort between Cambodia and China.

The United States-Asean (U.S.-ASEAN) Interaction: Why Cambodia ‘looks like Colombia’

At the U.S.-ASEAN summit, there was an empty chair where a representative from Myanmar would have sat had its leaders been allowed to attend official meetings.

In his remarks Saturday night, Biden mistakenly identified Cambodia as “Columbia”, a mistake he made the night before.

Biden said when he visited Beijing that the trajectory of the relationship was positive and it was in the mutual interest of both countries.

On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, the two leaders are set to meet each other for another honest exchange. The room is unlikely to be as warm as the surrounding area.

Biden, meanwhile, arrived in Asia following a better-than-expected performance by his party in the US midterm elections – with the Democrats projected to keep the Senate in a major victory. Asked Sunday whether the results allowed him to go into Monday’s face-to-face with a stronger hand, Biden voiced confidence. “I know I’m coming in stronger,” he told reporters.

The meeting is very important and the stakes are high. The world is reeling from the invasion of Ukraine, the Covid-19 epidemic and the destruction of climate change, and the two major powers need to get along more in order to instill stability.

A senior White House official said Thursday that Biden wants to prevent the relationship from falling into conflict by building a floor for it. The US official said that the main objective of the sit- down was to get a better idea of the priorities of the two leaders and to reduce the chances ofmisunderstanding.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan reinforced the message Saturday to reporters aboard Air Force One, noting the meeting is unlikely to result in any major breakthroughs or dramatic shifts in the relationship.

When China meets the US: what do the two sides want to accomplish? – Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser in Chinese business and economics

“The Chinese believe the US goal is to keep China down so we can contain it. And the US believes China’s goal is to make the world safer for authoritarian states, push the US out of Asia and weaken its alliance system,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

Kennedy has just returned from a trip to China, where he claims both sides blame each other for the state of the relationship.

The Americans and the Chinese are willing to pay these costs, because the Chinese think they are winning. And they think the other side is very unlikely to make any significant changes,” Kennedy said. All of those things reduce the chances of significant adjustments.

The fact that the two leaders are having a face-to-face conversation is positive, according to experts. Keeping dialogue open is crucial for reducing risks of misunderstanding and miscalculations, especially when suspicions run deep and tensions run high.

“I would love to be a fly on the wall to see that conversation because I don’t think that the US or China has been very precise about what its red lines are. Kennedy, from CSIS, said he didn’t know what positives the other side would get from staying within the red lines.

Washington acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but doesn’t accept Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the island. The US provides Taiwan defensive weapons, but has remained deliberately vague on whether it would intervene militarily if China attacks the island – a policy known as “strategic ambiguity.”

In response, China launched large scale military exercises around Taiwan which created an effective blockade and halted discussions with the US in a number of areas.

The two presidents are sitting together in the same room, as a result of intensive discussions between the two sides, Taiwan is expected to top their agenda. But in a sign of the contentiousness of the issue, barbs have already been traded.

His assessment of climate cooperation is notrosier. Shi said that China and the US can find common interests on climate change, but when it comes to how to deal with it, there is always enmity on policies and rivalry over ideology.

A positive outcome of greater communication and access between the US and China will be the restoration of suspended climate and military talks.

There were expectations on both sides of the Pacific that President Joe Biden would back away from the trade war he started with China in 2016 when he took office.

Speaking with reporters in Bali, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the meeting was intended to stabilize the relationship and expressed hopes that it would lay the groundwork for bilateral economic engagement.

The G20 Meeting on China and the Rise of the US-China Trade Cross-Section in the First Ten Months of 2021

The stakes are high for both sides, as well as the rest of the world. China, with its nearly $18 trillion economy, has in recent years been the main driver of global growth. But Covid lockdowns and a real estate crisis have slammed the brakes on its expansion this year.

The meeting will be low-key but it is important for both sides to come back to negotiations, according to the China director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network.

She said that heads of state have to speak directly. “There is a lack of trust in this relationship. If Xi and Biden send the signal that it’s time to resume communications, hopefully this will trickle down to the lower levels.”

Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative, says that it will be difficult to steady a US-China relationship that is at a low ebb.

She did not think there would be any dramatic changes in trade flows as a result of the meeting. And the surplus in China’s favor hasn’t gone away.

In the first ten months of this year, China’s exports to the United States rose 6.6% to $495 billion, compared to the same period in 2021, according to the latest Chinese customs data. The amount of American goods that China imported rose by just 3% to $145 billion.

Biden said that he had been told from China that they were concerned about it.

America’s dependence on foreign chip production has been highlighted as a downside by the Pandemic. Lockdowns and factory closures in Asia, followed by a global surge in demand for microchips, led to a crippling shortage of the crucial semiconductors needed for American industries ranging from auto manufacturers to cybersecurity to medical equipment.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/business/china-us-trade-issues-g20-meeting-intl-hnk/index.html

Production pauses at auto factories: the catalyst for $bf eta’$ inflation in the late 1980s and early 2000s

The ensuing production pauses at auto plants contributed to the skyrocketing price of new and used cars, fueling the inflation that remains at the highest level since the 1980s.