Removing barriers good for US-China
BEIJING: When U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dined at one of the oldest Cantonese restaurants Taotaoju after landing up in Guangzhou Thursday, the U.S. side demanded that the privacy screens be moved so that they could enjoy cuisine together with local diners sitting around.
Such a “remove-the-barrier” request, a gesture of openness that allows Yellen and her entourage to have a direct engagement with the Chinese people, was also a graceful pose for the camera. However, don’t forget that there are formidable barriers hindering interactions between China and the United States, which wait to be dismantled for the good of the two nations as well as the rest of the world.
The specter of protectionism has been haunting Washington. Multiple America’s top decision-makers, both Republicans and Democrats, have been in the grip of the you-win-I-lose
Cold War mentality when looking at China-U.S. relations. In their eyes, China’s progress equals America’s setbacks.
Fabricating the so-called “China threat” narrative, Washington has erected all kinds of barriers between the world’s top two economies, ranging from trade tariffs, high-tech embargoes, as well as visa restrictions for Chinese academics and students, among others.
For starters, tariffs on Chinese imports have caused higher prices of related items, and contributed to rising inflation that afflicts the U.S. economy in recent years. Over the past four years, grocery prices have jumped by 25 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Washington’s attempts to decouple the American economy from that of China, though Yellen denied on Friday, have also, in effect, come to naught.
Bilateral trade did decrease last year, and the U.S. trade deficit with China fell to its lowest in over a decade. However, the rising exports from countries like Vietnam and Mexico to the United States consisted of considerable inputs sourced from China.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute report published in January, even as China’s share of U.S. manufactured imports declined from 2017 to 2020, its share of the value added in goods consumed in the United States actually rose.
In the meantime, China’s development, not least in technological innovation, has kept up its momentum even in the face of America’s all-round crack-down. Last year, Huawei, China’s telecommunications company, surprised the world by launching a smartphone with new chips despite years of chip sanctions by Washington. Also, China’s pursuit of high-quality development is boosting its advanced manufacturing industries.