President Trump contends that the Chinese model is not conducive to ‘a fair deal competition,’ which needs to change if the standard business practices have to become the order of the day in a substantially closed PRC

The rigmarole of the rancor generated due to the trade war between the arch “cooperators and competitors” can be quite an intellectual challenge to comprehend. The rabid confrontation between US President Trump and Chinese commissar Xi Xingpin had to be delved into with an amalgamative zeal so that the thaw could heal between the two nations and their gargantuan economies in the contemporary context. The shock of the tariffs imposed on trade by the White House on Beijing elicited counter charges from the Chinese who did not intend to give an impression that the Han had chickened out. That led to carnage in the global economy, but on a second reading of the trajectory of trade tariffs and counter measures, much was being made out of it as Buenos Aires G-20 Summit might pave the way for a rote rapprochement after the American manoeuvre of “eco-containment” which India too ought to attempt as the all girdling impact of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative. 

What brought it all to such a passé akin to the Japanese and the American automobile wars of the Eighties? The Telegraph has reported that Huawei is the latest front in the tinderbox of the world economic health and pelf. As opposed to the past confrontation and the litany of tirade, the Chinese are expected to open up the financial sector within the next ninety days as part of a tentative tete-a-tete between the numero uno and the numero two in the sphere of the international economics. The sceptics and the fallen angels thought that the trade war and the Trump-infused exasperation of the Chinese to destabilise the American applecart might be filled with further rancor. Still, leaving apart the histrionics, President Trump has once again played smart and akin to a few other international engagements, has, listened to the Chinese plight or is this volte face a kind of an effort to cement China as an interlocutor par excellence in the context of the Korean quagmire and other theatres and frontiers.

Still, the chicken game and the dilemmatic tangle hang over the mystery of the Chinese elite in Canada. The South China Morning Post has says, “While the presidents of China and the United States were at a dinner in Buenos Aires that resulted in a 90-day truce in their trade war, Canadian police in Vancouver were arresting one of China’s corporate elites on behalf of the US. It is said that Donald Trump was not necessarily aware of it at the time. How he came not to be looped into advance notice given to the White House is unclear.” The Chinese are calling it as an element of deceit by the Americans, but, the American stance remains that President Trump was not aware of the arrest though the embarrassing incident can place a spanner in the works of the Argentine G-20 Summit and the Sino-American detente. Still, it’s good news that India, which is “slated-to-be-the ally” of the United States, will host the G-20 Summit in 2022. Thus, the entire international system cannot look askance at the intransigence and the trust deficit interceding on the behalf of real politic. In the words of Michael Bolton, the National Security Advisor, the Chinese inclination to indulge in intellectual theft and technology transfers need to be look into and might become a staple fare of confabulations between Washington and Beijing with the two strong men keeping the broth turning in the near future.

Intellectual property and censorship have always bedeviled the relationship between the two nations sparring rabidly with each other in the past too. As a part of the theft trail, the Chinese used to snoop in upon the quintessential Disney games, compact discs and cinematic productions while they lay waiting en route to Japan and Korea and other destinations in the Far East. Such thefts stripped the American soft power of its effectiveness and that led to an augmentation in the American awareness and retaliation about the Chinese skulduggery. As of now, the American sanctions similar to the ones on Iran can place the Chinese geo-political ambitions in a quandary and the dream can go awry sans deft diplomacy or seething Chinese retaliation. One opinion which has been bandied about is that a smarter, self-sufficient and stronger China might be on the offing, as an aftermath of President Trump’s policy. But, in more ways than one, the utilisation of economic strangulation on a strong foe, is, a feisty testament to the stately striving of stultifying an arch rival. The ninety days of tariff truce is going to be another deft geo-economic stratagem on the part of President Trump and will serve as a long drawn-out pressure tactic in order to stem the Chinese in their overarch which is bound to be coming to a lurching halt head-on with the all pervading regulator, equalizer and organiser, the United States of America.

The US, China and Mexico deal serves as a backgrounder to the G-20 Summit with the American Monroe Doctrine coming into play in all its pristine glory with the Chinese being commandeered to act as second fiddle in the geo-economics of the larger political economy. The fact that a few nations have also agreed to fall in line with the American tariffs on China, speaks volumes about the gradual but steady transformation of the world system as the world intends to lurch out of the clap trap approach of the developmental hiatus in the larger international system. Thus, Indians are not the only pivotal people who might end up being American allies but nations such as Australia, Netherlands and Germany too have jumped on to the American vessel.

This is “grand standing band-wagoning” for the international system with America acting as the leader and the regulator nation in the contemporary context. The trade war might have rocked the boat of the global political economy, but, once again it’s not an irreversible pathway to perdition.

A consultancy firm in Vietnam contends that 10 per cent of tariff on 200 billion dollar worth of Chinese imports could have been manageable but 25 per cent of the entire strategy might completely scupper the Chinese profits as is evident from the performance of a few companies in the Chinese “eco-system.” Still, the trade war has created a bubble, which, will die down after the twin nations find a way to subsist together as trade partners. It is also an instance of Altercasting, where in the Chinese and American economic interface is not about a geo-economic interface, but tends to transform the “scanty model” with a “plenty model” of economics. As in the lingo of IR theory, nations learn and copy from each other as they negotiate and function together as efficient working units in the larger international system. “Can the Chinese learn” is the million-dollar question as a pertinent poser in today’s context. President Trump contends that the Chinese model is not conducive to “a fair deal competition,” which needs to change if the standard business practices have to become the order of the day in a substantially closed PRC.

The final ask being that China needs to be high income and America attained that staggering keel and the question which can be posed is that can we have such stories in Latin America and Africa, too? Thus, the idiom of, a thrift society needs to be changed and the Democratic ideal of high income societies serve as a pointer in the right direction. Let the land of AbiCeleste be the solution.

(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)