President Trump, during a state visit in November 2017, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Artyom Ivanov / Tass)
Don Lee, L.A. Times: For the U.S. and China, it’s not a trade war anymore — it’s something worse
What started out two years ago as an effort by President Trump to wring better terms from China on the nuts and bolts of foreign trade now threatens to become a far wider and more ominous confrontation.
The conflict continues to be framed as a “trade war” between the world’s two biggest economies — as Washington and Beijing pursue an escalating series of tariff hikes and other retaliatory measures.
Even as Trump moved Thursday to open a new, potentially damaging trade war with Mexico, however, the conflict with China has widened beyond the original trade-based issues.
Beneath the surface, a new tone has begun to emerge since trade talks broke down in early May and Trump ratcheted up tariffs on imported goods from China, an action met with retaliatory duties from Beijing. Officials on both sides of the Pacific have begun to portray the U.S.-China relationship in nationalistic and emotion-charged terms that suggest a much deeper conflict.
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WNU editor: In my opinion China's policies and behaviour has not changed. What has changed is the U.S. is now doing to China what China has been doing to the U.S. for the past ten to fifteen years. For the Chinese this has been more than a shock. They always expected $400 to $500 billion dollar trade surpluses with the U.S.. Little if any action on intellectual property theft. And certainly no blow-back on their actions in the South China Sea and on their other maritime territorial claims.
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