The View | Why US will fail to scuttle China’s economic integration with the rest of Asia

In the past, America’s push for globalisation has benefited the region. Now less dominant in the world economy, the US hopes to reverse such integration to undermine China, but it won’t succeed

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A container ship sails towards Shanghai’s Yangshan Port on April 27. China today can offer more than deep pockets in Asia’s economic development. Photo: Xinhua via AP

Published: 9:15am, 8 Jun 2022

It is fitting that US President Joe Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) – perhaps heralding a turn away from globalisation – in Tokyo. After all, post-war globalisation began in earnest in Japan – starting in the 1950s and blossoming in the 1960s – against the backdrop of the Cold War and in the aftermath of the Korean war.

Japan’s successful export economy inspired the Four Asian Dragons (also known as the Four Asian Tigers), which were led by authoritarian governments except for Hong Kong, which was ruled by a London-appointed governor. These two initial phases of East Asian globalisation created global companies such as Sony, Samsung, Toyota and Hyundai – made possible by access to the US and European markets.

With the rapprochement between the US and China in the late 1970s, globalisation in East Asia began its third phase, during which China became “the world’s factory”.

Just like its predecessors Japan and South Korea, China has been transitioning from making labour-intensive goods to technologically sophisticated products. With China’s technological advances and international expansion (such as through its Belt and Road Initiative), East Asian globalisation entered its fourth phase.

China became the leading manufacturing nation in 2011 and the leading trading nation in 2013. And, by 2020, China had as many new patents granted per year as the US and Japan combined. Just like Japan in the 1980s, China has emerged as a threat to America’s economic dominance.

After the US turned its back on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the IPEF may be seen as its feeble attempt to undermine the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Unlike its decisive and constructive roles in the earlier phases of East Asian globalisation, however, it will be much harder for the US to orchestrate deglobalisation in Asia for several reasons.