{"id":1795,"date":"2018-08-22T17:52:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T17:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackopspartners.com\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2018-08-22T17:52:24","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T17:52:24","slug":"china-u-s-trade-spat-is-just-a-start-to-the-economic-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/china-u-s-trade-spat-is-just-a-start-to-the-economic-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"China-U.S. Trade Spat Is Just a Start to the Economic Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reposted from Bloomberg Opinion<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Expect Beijing to rival Washington, Silicon Valley and even Hollywood. Like the Soviet Union, this threat could define a generation of American life.<\/h4>\n

China is not just another front in President Donald Trump’s war on trade. Unlike Mexico, Canada, Europe and other targets of the president, China will be a source of economic conflict for years to come, long after the tariff level on soybeans has been settled. Like the rivalry with the Soviet Union, economic competition with China may form a cold war that shapes American politics and economic policy for a generation or more.<\/p>\n

Until now, through flukes of timing, Americans have largely been distracted from China’s economic development. China\u00a0joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001<\/a>, three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For the next several years, America’s focus was terrorism and war in the Middle East, not China’s ascension and its impact on the U.S. economy. Next came a financial crisis and the great recession, which became the national focus for the next several years. The post-recession political environment in the U.S. has largely been one of government dysfunction and partisan polarization.<\/p>\n

But changes in both China and the U.S. make the current period different. In China’s period of economic development in the 2000s and much of the 2010s, there were clear benefits for the U.S. even if there were tradeoffs as well. China opening up gave some U.S. industries greater access to the Chinese domestic market. U.S. consumers benefited by getting cheap goods produced in China. There was a hope that integrating China into the global economy would shift its culture to be more like the West.<\/p>\n

With China announcing its “Made in China 2025” economic vision, it’s difficult to see much benefit for the U.S. Seeking to become self-sufficient<\/a>\u00a0in industries ranging from aerospace to semiconductors to robots threatens American jobs, corporate profits and global technological leadership. China also becomes more of a national security threat.<\/p>\n

We’ve seen in recent years that as global institutions fray, political and cultural power defaults to the players with the most economic clout. In Hollywood, movies are made increasingly with the\u00a0Chinese audience in mind<\/a>, which means ensuring that movies can pass Chinese censors. In oil markets,\u00a0power is shifting to Saudi Arabia and Russia<\/a>\u00a0away from OPEC as the two countries’ share of production increases. And in Silicon Valley, while large companies may be debating whether and how much to censor content in the U.S. market, there’s\u00a0no such consternation about censorship<\/a>\u00a0if it means access to the Chinese market.<\/p>\n