Whenever I read one of the many well-intentioned articles, like this one at The National Interest by Yukon Huang and David Stack, counseling President Trump and the United States to avoid trade war with China, I’m struck by how little the experts know. You don’t have to follow a lot of statements made by the Chinese authorities to recognize that they see not only trade but the relationships among nations as zero sum games and they’re in it to win and for that we must lose.
Or this statement:
Moreover, there is no direct link between China’s trade surplus and America’s trade deficit. The U.S. trade deficit started to balloon in 1997, while rapid growth in China’s surplus didn’t start for another six years and its size didn’t surpass Japan’s until 2006.
which exhibits a remarkable inability to understand trends. It is in the nature of geometric growth that it starts small and over time becomes very big. You trace the trend from its beginning not its end.
To me there are two questions. Have the Chinese have used every means at their disposal with the deliberate intention of reducing our industrial base? And is that good for the United States as a whole? I think the answers to those questions are “yes” and “no” respectively.
The U.S. trade deficit with China was $22 billion in 1993. By 1997 that deficit had more than doubled to $49 billion. By 2002 that had more than doubled again to $103 billion. By 2005 it had doubled again. I really do wonder what the authors’ definition of “rapid” is. Ten times growth by yesterday?
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
That’s my point about geometric growth. They obviously have no sense for math.