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Opinion | Rather than decouple, China and the US must find ways to coexist
- Clear thinkers in China know a bitter divorce from the US is a lose-lose situation
- Beijing could instead seek healthy competition and cooperation with the US, expand operations of Chinese brands in America, and aim to be more transparent
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Why you can trust SCMP
Who blinked first? It doesn’t matter. The news that top Chinese and US officials, State Councillor Yang Jiechi and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, met in Hawaii is good for the world. Perhaps Beijing and Washington know it’s time to dial back their altercation over issues from trade and technology to Hong Kong.
Moreover, an outright divorce between the United States and China – or a decoupling of their economies – isn’t actually helpful to anyone when the two economies are so intertwined.
US-China trade has declined due to the imposition of high tariffs first by the Trump administration, then by Beijing in response. Chest-thumping talk of economic decoupling sounds tough, but US industries and investors know it is easier said than done, and highly risky. It will also negatively affect the economies of many other countries.
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Beijing knows, too, that a sustained battle with Washington will hurt China. After all, it took decades of economic development to lift hundreds of millions of Chinese workers out of poverty and turn China into the world’s factory.
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The US and China need to rethink their rules of engagement with each other. They can start by listening and acknowledging the validity of each other’s complaints, to carve a mutually agreeable path forward. The meeting in Hawaii could be the start of more down-to-earth dialogue.
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