Zhou Xiaoming

Opinion | US ‘de-risking’ from China is just economic decoupling by another name

Dropping the term ‘decoupling’ in favour of ‘de-risking’ shows the US knows the damage its policies can do, but its behaviour towards China has not changed

With Washington using national security to justify its actions, it is unlikely to abandon moves such as blacklisting companies or restrictions on investment

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Zhou Xiaoming

Published: 9:15am, 11 May 2023

Of late, the Biden administration appears to have started to move away from decoupling from China’s economy. On April 20, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told an audience at Johns Hopkins University that the United States does “not seek to decouple our economy from China’s” and that “a full separation of our economies would be disastrous for both countries.”

A week later, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan echoed her sentiment in a speech at the Brookings Institution, stating that “we are for de-risking and diversifying, not for decoupling”. These remarks were greeted with a measure of relief in some quarters. However, such optimism could prove to be a false hope.

Whether the Biden administration will press ahead with decoupling hinges on how it views the country’s national security. US economic policy is being driven by national security goals. Not surprisingly, both Yellen and Sullivan emphasised in their speeches that the United States prioritises national security concerns in its relationship with China, even if it comes at an economic cost.

This begs the question of what national security actually means to the Biden administration. Citing national security concerns, the US levied tariffs on Chinese-made steel and aluminium products and banned equipment from Huawei and ZTE.

Today, the US consistently views economic and commercial matters related to China through the prism of national security. In its attempts to compete with China, it often plays the “national security” card to legitimise its actions.

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The US has not bothered to provide a definition of “economic security” or outline its parameters. Instead, it has chosen to give itself a free hand. As a result, national security concerns know no bounds in Washington and its geopolitical aims are the limits.