U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS IN THE ERA OF MULTI-POLARISM: TRADE WAR BETWEEN THE TWO ECONOMIC GIANTS

Year 2022, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 43 - 65, 25.04.2022

Mohamad Zreık

Abstract

The great Chinese economic progress has become a source of concern to the United States, so former U.S. President Donald Trump announced the trade war to curb and slow Chinese economic progress following the vision of the U.S. The Trump administration has highlighted economic protectionism against what he calls “unfairness.” Still, it is becoming inevitable that applying this strategy is no longer viable in current foreign policy, given that the world is no longer unipolar and that the U.S. is defying fierce competition by China. A major economic powerhouse. This research paper comprehensively discusses the historical evolution of events that made China a major player, the direction the U.S. has followed in adapting to such change, and the new balance of power-driven by emerging markets. This academic work will aim to understand how the U.S.-International role is redefined under the grasp of China evolved and enhanced international trade dominance. The study will mainly target how the trade war between the two giants may proceed to the next level and create serious international trade challenges.

Keywords

U.S.-China Relations, Trade War, U.S. Foreign Policy, World Order, Tariffs

References

• Ajakaiye, Olusanya and Raphael Kaplinsky (2009). “China in Africa: A relationship in transition”. The European Journal of Development Research, 21(4): 479–484.
• Alden, Chris (2007). China in Africa. Zed Books.
• Amiti, Mary, Sang Hoon Kong and David Weinstein (2020). The effect of the U.S.-China trade war on U.S. investment. National Bureau of Economic Research.
• Biesheuvel, Thomas (2018). As China fires back in trade war, here are the winners and losers. Bloomberg.
• Bown, Chad P. and Melina Kolb (2021). Trump’s trade war timeline: An up-todate guide. Peterson Institute for International Economy.
• Broich, Tobias (2017). New actors in the global economy: The case of Chinese development finance in Africa. Maastricht University.
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (2018). Gross Domestic Product, 3rd quarter 2018. Advance Estimate.
• CARI (2021). China-Africa Trade Data. Retrieved from http://www.sais-cari.org/data-china-africa-trade. Accessed: 23.03.2021.
• Cochran, Bert (1973). Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency. New York, Funk & Wagnall.
• Dabbous, Amal and Abbas Tarhini (2021). “Does sharing economy promote sustainable economic development and energy efficiency? Evidence from OECD countries”. Journal of Innovation and Knowledge, 6(1): 58–68.
• Dearden, Nick (2016). TTIP was defeated by activists – Trump just exploited public anger over it. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/14/ttip-defeated-activists-donald-trump. Accessed: 17.02.2020.
• Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board (2018). Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities.
• Dreyer, Edward L. (1995). China at War 1901–1949. London and New York: Longman.
• Dube, Clayton (2011). Getting to Beijing: Kissinger’s secret 1971 trip. USC U.S.-China Institute.
• Dunbabin, John (1996). International Relations Since 1945: A History in Two Volumes. London Longman.
• Engardio, Peter (2005). China is a private-sector economy. Bloomberg Businessweek. Eshete, Zerayehu S. (2020). China’s unprecedented move and its repercussion on African economies: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia. In Jacob Wood and Olivier Habimana (Red.), A Multidimensional Economic Assessment of Africa (pp. 283–303). Singapore: Springer.
• Fang, Jason and Michael Walsh (2018). What is Made in China 2025 and why is the world concerned about it? ABC News.
• Fettig, David (2019). What washing machines can teach us about the cost of tariffs, UChicago News. Retrieved from https://news.uchicago.edu/story/whatwashing-machines-can-teach-us-about-cost-tariffs. Accessed: 17.02.2020.
• Fisher, Max (2016). The South China Sea: Explaining the Dispute. The New York Times.
• Gardner, Bovingdon (2010). The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land. Columbia University Press.
• Gazibo, Mamoudou and Mbabia Olivier (2012). How China seduces Africa. The Focus: Africa and the Chinese way.
• Gin Ooi, Keat (2004). Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. ABC-CLIO.
• Gordon, Leonard H. D. (2009). Confrontation Over Taiwan: Nineteenth-Century China and the Powers. Lexington Books.
• Goulard, Sebastien (2020). “The impact of the U.S.–China trade war on the European Union”. Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, 12(1): 56–68.
• Heeb, Gina (2018). Farm bankruptcies are surging as Trump’s trade war drags on. Markets Insider.
• Holmes, Leslie (2009). Communism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Huang, Yukon (2021). The U.S.-China trade war has become a Cold War. Carnegie Available.
• International Monetary Fund (2018). World economic and financial surveys world economic outlook database. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/01/weodata/index.aspx. Accessed: 16.01.2020.
• Iqbal, Badar (2020). “Guest editorial: China–U.S. trade war”. Global Trade and Customs Journal, 15(11/12): 505-507.
• Itakura, Ken (2019). “Evaluating the impact of the U.S.–China trade war”. Asian Economic Policy Review, 15(1): 77–93.
• Kennedy, Scott (2015). Made in China 2025. Center for Strategic and International studies.
• Kline, Daniel B. (2018). Income disparity: U.S. middle class falling farther behind the wealthy, Pew report claims. USA Today.
• Krol, Robert (2021). Trump’s trade war was an economic and political loss, WITA.
• Kuo, Lily and Niko Kommenda (2018). What is China’s Belt and Road Initiative? The Guardian.
• Lam, Willy (2016). Getting lost in ‘One Belt, One Road’. Retrieved from http://www.ejinsight.com/20160412-getting-lost-one-belt-one-road/. Accessed: 21.02.2020.
• Laskai, Lorand (2018). Why does everyone hate Made in China 2025? CFR.
• Lavrov, Sergey (2021). Sino-Russian relations are now at the best level in history. China News. Retrieved from https://www.chinanews.com/gj/2021/03-23/9438152.shtml. Accessed: 23.03.2021.
• Li, Chunding and John Whalley (2021). “Trade protectionism and U.S. manufacturing employment”. Economic Modelling, 96(C): 353–361.
• Ma, Hong, Ning Jingxin and Xu Mingzhi (2021)/ “An eye for an eye? The trade and price effects of China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.” China Economic Review, 69(C): 101685.
• Maasland, Jan-Daan (2017). The failure of TPP and the future of Trump’s trade policies. Financial Study Association Rotterdam. Retrieved from https://fsr.nl/perspective/article/2017-07-27-the-failure-of-tpp-and-the-future-of-trump-strade-policies. Accessed: 18.12.2020.
• MacMillan, Margaret (2008). Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World. Random House Trade Paperbacks.
• Maverick, Jack (2018). The 3 reasons why Chinese invest in Africa. Investopedia.
• Medetsky, Anatoly and Megan Durisin (2018). China turns to Russia in search to replace U.S. soybeans. Bloomberg.
• Moyo, Dambisa (2013). Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What It Means for the World. Basic Books.
• Natulya, Paul (2018). Grand strategy and China’s soft power push in Africa. Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
• O’Grady, Sean (2017). By scrapping TPP and TTIP, Trump has boosted American jobs in the short term – and destroyed them in the long term. Independent Voices. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trumptrade-deals-tpp-ttip-american-business-workers-boost-short-term-destroy-longterm-a7543706.html. Accessed: 21.12.2020.
• Pan, Chengxin (2019). Made in China 2025 and U.S.-China power competition. Retrieved from www.lowyinstitute.org. Accessed: 25.02.2020.
• Perlez, Jane (2016). Tribunal rejects Beijing’s claims in South China Sea. The New York Times.
• Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2017). The long view how will the global economic order change by 2050?
• Rajah, Roland (2021). Vital trade lessons from China’s failed attempt at coercion. The Australian. Retrieved from https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/vital-trade-lessons-from-chinas-failed-attempt-at-coercion/newsstory/5bdde5f4e6e89e79818231fa7e1624a4. Accessed: 23.12.2021.
• Redick, Charles F. (1973). “The jurisprudence of the foreign claims settlement commission: Chinese claims”. The American Journal of International Law, 67(4): 728-740.
• Reid, David (2018). Trump hails trade deal with China as one of the largest ever made. CNBC.
• Rennison, Joe (2017). China reclaims title as biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt. Financial Times.
• Salama, Vivian and Gordon Lubold (2021). Biden says he sees China as ‘stiff competition’.” The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/biden-press-conference-live-updatesanalysis/card/ifirn5yjOObkp-0pm2Lzv. Accessed: 25.03.2021.
• Sanger, David E. (2013). Obama and Xi try to avoid a Cold War mentality. The New York Times.
• Shiyuan, Hao (2015). How the Communist Party of China Manages the Issue of Nationality: An Evolving Topic. Springer.
• Simonite, Tom (2017). It’s too late to stop China from becoming an a.i. superpower.Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/america-china- ai-ascension/. Accessed: 28.01.2020.
• Staiger, Robert W. (2021). A world trading system for the twenty-first century. Tech. rep., National Bureau of Economic Research.
• Steil, Benn and Benjamin Della Rocca (2019). Trump’s trade war puts “Belt and Road first”. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/blog/trumps-trade-war-putsbelt- and-road-first. Accessed: 15.04.2020.
• Stueck, William W. (1981). The Road to Confrontation: American Policy toward China and Korea, 1947–1950. University of North Carolina Press.
• Sugita, Yoneyuki (2003). “The rise of an American principle in China: A reinterpretation of the first open door notes towards China” in Richard J. Jensen, Jon Thares Davidann, and Yoneyuki Sugita, eds. Trans-Pacific Relations: America, Europe, and Asia in the twentieth Century. Greenwood.
• The Economist (2016). Our bulldozers, our rules. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/china/2016/07/02/our-bulldozers-our-rules. Accessed: 21.12.2020.
• The World Bank (2021). China economic update. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/publication/china-economic-update-december-2021. Accessed: 25.12.2021.
• Tweed, David and Ting Shi (2016). China’s South China Sea claims dashed by Hague Court ruling. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-12/china-no-historic-right-to-south-china-sea-resources-courtsays. Accessed: 15.12.2020.
• U.S. State Department (2005). Foreign terrorist organizations. Report.
• Van der Lugt, Sanne (2020). Six persistent myths about China-Africa relations | Clingendael Spectator. Retrieved from https://spectator.clingendael.org/nl/publicatie/ six-persistent-myths-about-chinaafrica-relationsAccessed: 16.09.2020.
• Van Vranken Hickey, Dennis (1988). America’s Two-point Policy and the Future of Taiwan. Asian Survey, in JSTOR.
• Wadhams, Nick (2021). Blinken says only China can truly challenge global system. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-03/blinken-calls-china-competition-a-key-challenge-for-theu-s.Accessed: 03.03.2021.
• Wainer, David (2021). End Trump’s trade war? Easy inflation win could backfire on Biden. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/biden-could-end-trump-s-china-trade-war-tobeat-inflation-but-open-gop-attacks. Accessed: 18.11.2021.
• Wainer, David and Isabel Reynolds (2021). It’s all about China as Biden, Suga meet amid Taiwan tensions. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-16/it-s-all-about-china-as-bidensuga-meet-amid-taiwan-tensions. Accessed: 16.14.2021.
• Walter, Stefanie (2021). “The backlash against globalization”. Annual Review of Political Science, No. 24: 421–442.
• Wan, Ming (2015). The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: The Construction of Power and the Struggle for the East Asian International Order. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ward, Alex (2018). Trump’s China strategy is the most radical in decades — and it’s failing. VOX.
• Yinhong, Shi (2021). The Biden administration’s China posture: Focusing on strategic military. Political science and international relations forum.
• Yulong, Niu and Zhendong Yang (2021). China-Iran comprehensive cooperation plan: RMB settlement. Beidou and 5G.” Tencent website. Retrieved from https://new.qq.com/omn/20210328/20210328A09Q3E00.html. Accessed: 28.03.2021.