US national editor Edward Luce and global China editor James Kynge examine the deteriorating relationship between the world’s two superpowers, the United States and China, who are engaged in a long-term damaging trade war
The corona virus pandemic has really sort of accelerated and intensified this anti-china investment agenda the china’s posture these days towards the u.s. is to show no deference there’s a strong public feeling in america that america shouldn’t have its eggs in the china basket i don’t know that china really cares that much if it’s winning any new friends through
This crisis so ed how have we got to the point where the relationship between these two countries is unraveling so rapidly i’d like to think of it as a like a divorce process here you have this couple that have been together for years that have got rich together that have become in the last few years increasingly verbally abusive towards each other with the hint of
Possibly worse yet because of their wealth and the fact that their assets are so deeply entangled an actual divorce is not something their financial advisors would wish to see the emotional side of this though is what’s really dominating and i know you james as a long-term china observer you’ve seen the change in trend what we have over here that’s shocking all kinds
Of trying to observers is the emergence of these undiplomatic chinese diplomats over here they call them the wolf warrior diplomats and that that name comes from chinese films where special ops soldiers basically take out western mercenaries and some of the things that are becoming out of these guys mouths is quite extraordinary one chinese diplomat jaffa jolly jen
Who’s the foreign ministry spokesman suggested that this virus could have been brought to china by the us military also that that old chinese phrase from deng xiaoping bide your time hide your light under a bushel that’s clearly not true you know since trump was elected on the basis of china is ravaging raping our economy as increasingly through the trade wars in
The last few years but also through rhetoric through this emotional idea that if the world really is a zero-sum game and now we have very prominent to the champions like tom cotton the republican senator talking about china is the new evil empire and china being alleged by trump to have pretty much deliberately caused to this pandemic that no have not even 100 trade
Deals will be worth the innocent lives lost is something he tweeted the other day this is this is beyond emotionally abusive this is very aggressive language so unhappy couples tend to agree that they’re unhappy but when it comes to splitting assets that’s when the real disputes come come into action how complex would this asset division look one of the things we
Have to realize is that the us-china commercial interaction has really been the most important commercial relationship in history the us companies invested hundreds of billions of us dollars into china over the last 40 years in many ways they’ve really helped engineer china’s economic rise and in recent years china’s economic rise has been absolutely vital for the
Global economy in fact china has contributed more than just over one-third of total global gdp growth so this is an absolutely vital relationship in terms of the welfare of the global economy but recently we’ve just seen parts of this relationship just fall off a cliff the part i’d like to highlight is chinese investment into the u.s. in the first quarter of this
Year we saw it fall to just 200 million us dollars that’s about 1/10 the level of that we saw every quarter last year and last year itself was the lowest year for chinese investment into the us since 2009 chinese companies these days seem to really fear to go to the us are you seeing that is that what it feels like over there there is a strong you know suspicion
Guilty till proven again walking ready chinese fdi of any description particularly huawei of course the big china telecoms giant and i think the corona virus pandemic has really sort of accelerated and intensified this anti china investment agenda there’s a strong public feeling in america trumpian feeling if you like that america shouldn’t have its eggs in the
China basket and then lastly a federal government of trump administration moved to a disinvest public pension funds or not allow public pension funds to invest in chinese asset if that spreads to the entire financial relationship then i think we’re in to round two or three of this decoupling and the division of the assets will be really quite painful for the us
Economy the chinese economy and everybody else and learn summers the former us treasuries actually used to refer to the prospect of a financial decoupling as mutually assured destruction actual mutually assured destruction and of course that’s what financial advisors of divorcing couples would say it’s crazy you’re going to both end up poorer but i guess it all
Boils down to whether they hate each other more another aspect of this a really key word is the impact of this decoupling on friends and neighbors which i think we should talk about next the anti china rhetoric is kind of the main offshoot of the whole america first agenda and the america first agenda isn’t just aggressive towards china its aggressive towards any
Multilateral body its aggressive towards any alliance its skeptical of any alliance it’s really predicated on trump’s view the the world has been ripping america off for too long china being the top of that list but the hope will help being on it basically so i think it’s alienating allies who would ordinarily be sharing america’s fear of a rising china the most
Egregious example of this has come really during the corona virus pandemic and that is with trump’s suspension of funding to the world health organization and then his threat to dr. t drops the head of the w-h-o that america would withdraw within 30 days unless it ceased to be dependent on china this is exactly the kind of thing that alienates america’s friends and
Allies there are myriad of examples before the pandemic i guess my question to you is is china picking up friends and allies at the rate that america is alienating perth you know my feeling is that i don’t know that china really cares that much if it’s winning any new friends through this crisis it seems to me that china’s posture these days towards the u.s. is to
Show no deference as far as china sees it this crisis is more about the decline of the west than it is about the rise of china i think it’s showing a new confidence and new sense of conviction in international relations and the other thing is i don’t really think that china is directing its charm offensive mainly at the west these days anyway i think china’s trauma
Offensive is being directed at developing nations as you well know edie china has this huge plan to build infrastructure in developing countries all over the world called the belton road initiative china’s been lending hundreds of billions of us dollars to that end and i think it’s there that china wants to build long-term relationships whether it’s succeeding
At that at the moment is really hard to say but let me come back to you so far in this discussion we’ve spoken about this rather messy divorce we’ve spoken about the emotional impact we’ve spoken about the division of assets and we’ve spoken about how who the friends and neighbors are siding with but tell me yet does this divorce ever really happen does it in
Fact ever go to court if there’s gonna be a courtroom battle the election presidential election campaign that’s brewing up here in the united states looks like a courtroom battle donald trump’s got this a whole argument that he’s not to blame for the coronavirus trump saying no china is to blame china is to blame for it it covered up it lied bald-faced lying it’s
Bigger than pearl harbor the more american deaths and not only is china to blame for covering it up and originating the pathogen but it also has in joe biden the democratic nominee a big friend of china a big friend an apologist for china somebody wants to normalize relations between the us and china drug seized this anti china completing the divorce with china as
His re-election bid so i guess my question to you james you know in this in this pretty troubling context of relations between the two countries and this election where china is going to be front and center it’s kanna divorce be avoided if trump is reelected on that basis i think it’ll be very difficult i think the advent of a second term for donald trump would
Be greeted in beijing by something close to horror the main problem with a relationship right now is that it’s very difficult to see a natural break in the unraveling of these ties between the two countries it’s very difficult to see a way in which the u.s. can reach out to china and china can reach out to the u.s. to put a floor under this fast deteriorating relationship
Transcribed from video
Have the US and China passed the point of no return? | FT By Financial Times
