0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Will the US-China Trade War Spill Over Into the South China Sea?Can the South China Sea become a front in the U.S.-China trade war?By Robert FarleyAugust 21, 2018 Over the past month, the Trump administration has stepped up its trade war with China, with uncertain results thus far. But the scope of the war has increased, from a tight focus on the appropriation of high technology to broader trade concerns. Could it expand even farther, to other policy arenas?As David Stanton and Wenquing Zhao argue, the Trump administration has (in somewhat clumsy fashion) linked its case against high technology espionage with its more general anxiety about America’s trade deficit with China. At issue now is not simply espionage, but the broader principles of trade across the Pacific. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about the size of the U.S.-China trade deficit, to good rhetorical effect with his base but thus far to only limited policy impact. This has served to unite, however uneasily, constituencies interested in the security of cutting edge technology with Trump’s more general protectionist supporters. Indeed, the union of these constituencies may be more important to Trump than the achievement of any real gains against China.Moreover, as Robert Williams has argued, the Trump administration has taken an increasingly statist approach to trade and investment in high technology, potentially making its critique of Chinese policy ring hollow. Of course, the national security state has always taken an interest in technology, and has used a variety of tools to manage the innovation, access, and diffusion of high end capabilities. But the Trump administration seems to be taking the use of the tools to a new level, at least compared with several previous administrations.Read more at: https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/will-the-us-china-trade-war-spill-over-into-the-south-china-sea/
