The China–U.S. Trade War and Future Economic Relations

Some people might believe in the 'Thucydides Trap' that, as a rising power challenges the dominance of an established power, a China-U.S. trade war will be inevitable. Being the largest and the second largest trading nations globally, the U.S. and China are, in fact, each other’s most important partner in trade. In this book, Lau looks through various economic statistics of the past few decades and shows us that while the real effects of the China-U.S. trade war in 2018 are not negligible, they are relatively manageable for both nations. There is no need to panic despite psychological effects on the Chinese stock markets and on the Renminbi exchange rate. Behind the trade war is the potential economic and technological competition between China and the U.S., which is likely to become the 'new normal'. It is up to each government battle against the rise of xenophobia, with the facts that China-U.S. economic collaboration is a potentially positive-sum game through better coordination and fully utilising each other’s currently underutilised resources. Balancing China-U.S. trade and enhancing economic interdependence is actually possible.