actions threaten to ensure that fear is realized. For those who fear the United States is losing the competitive race with China, U.S. It could lose market share in third countries. As a result, the United States faces the prospect of putting its companies at a disadvantage relative to its allies, limiting its ability to commercialize innovations. export controls aimed at protecting the United States’ technologies as a threat to China’s future growth Washington views anything that could advance China’s technological capability as enabling the rise of a strategic competitor and aiding Beijing’s aggressive military buildup.Ĭhina and the United States are in a headlong descent from a competitive but sometimes cooperative relationship to one that is confrontational in nearly every respect.

relations is viewed by both sides through the prism of national security, even matters that were once regarded as positive, such as job-creating investments or co-innovation in breakthrough technologies. In 2023, unlike 2008, nearly every aspect of Chinese-U.S. attitudes toward China have turned sharply negative, as have the politics in Washington. What has not changed, however, is the fact that without a stable relationship between the United States and China, where cooperation on shared interests is possible, the world will be a very dangerous and less prosperous place. China has very different and more assertive leadership. It has more than tripled the size of its economy since 2008 and now has stronger capabilities to pursue adversarial policies. At the same time, it has done far less to open its economy to foreign competition than many in the West have advocated and expected.

China and the United States jab accusatory fingers at each other, blame each other for bad policies, and trade barbs about a global economic downturn from which both countries and the world have yet to recover. cooperation and only intensified deepening antagonism. Unlike during the financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic failed to spark Chinese-U.S.

Today, such cooperation is inconceivable. As Treasury secretary, I worked with Chinese leaders during the 2008 financial crisis to forestall contagion, mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, and restore macroeconomic stability. At that time, self-interested cooperation was possible even amid political and ideological differences, clashing security interests, and divergent views about the global economy, including China’s currency valuation and its industrial subsidies. One notable difference, however, is the state of Chinese-U.S. And the world faced severe global economic challenges. Tensions with Iran and North Korea were perennially high. That year, Russia invaded its neighbor, Georgia. For all the talk of how we have entered a new global era, the last year bears a striking resemblance to 2008.

On the brink by henry m paulson jr