Trump’s USA is maintaining its pressure on China as its time in the White House is coming to an end. This week the US blacklisted more than 60 Chinese companies including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, China’s leading chipmaker. Trump is determined to hurt China and there must be consequences for China. but two points;-
First, China has given increased focus to the need to develop “secure and controllable” supply chains for key technologies. If the US wants to “de-couple” from China, China will make itself independent of US pressure. Easy to say – difficult to do and, in the short term, China may suffer some dislocation. But the long term matters more.
Second, it will not be lost on China that nothing stirred the US into significant research more than the USSR Sputnik breakthrough of 1957. It worked and led to the US being the first country, the only country, to put a Man on the Moon in 1969. Adversity can inspire.
The strategic question remains regardless: Does the World need more confrontation or more co-operation? Landing mutual blows boosts self-image and ego but at the cost of more trade, more development and more prosperity.
