China’s economy may suffer under Donald Trump’s cold war but the US shouldn’t count on stopping it

Andrew K.P. Leung says that whatever US’ reasons, and whatever methods it may use, China is far too integrated into global supply chains for the US containment strategy to end its upwards trajectory

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Published: 3:00am, 17 Oct 2018Updated: 6:17am, 17 Oct 2018

US Vice-President Mike Pence's ferocious anti-China speech was the latest salvo in what The New York Times has called a “new cold war”. It followed a recent US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) with a “poison pill” clause that forbids parallel agreements with “non-market economies” (read China).

Similar clauses are expected in future US agreements with Japan and the European Union. A Western economic wall is being built to isolate the Middle Kingdom.

Concurrently, the White House has made an issue of the yuan exchange rate, and the US might designate China a currency manipulator, moving towards a currency war.

Watch: Mike Pence accuses China of meddling in upcoming elections

The Diplomat, a Washington-based geopolitical magazine, published an article on October 3, portraying China as scheming to dominate the world, first by following Western rules and international institutions, then eventually bending them to suit its “authoritarian” version of “neo-mercantilism”. The Economist waded in with a cover story on October 4, stating that “China has designs on Europe”.

While China's economy will suffer from America's cold war, its economic trajectory is unlikely to be disrupted