Abstract
This article argues that the nexus between economic and security issues is a crucial cause of the deterioration in the U.S.–China relationship, which commenced around the mid-2010s. It outlines two strands of that nexus as enacted in the policies of the Obama and Trump administrations: (1) China’s advances in acquiring and developing new technologies that have significant commercial and military value; and (2) the economic and legal instruments and policies the United States has adopted in the wake of China’s commercial challenge to prosecute its wider strategic competition. The article traces the emergence and solidification of the economic-security nexus in U.S. policy towards China, before comparing the Obama and Trump administrations’ responses to the technological challenge posed by China. We argue that while the Obama administration was slow to recognize the extent of the challenge, it had begun to pursue a strategy that might have resulted in the reduction of competitive zero-sum dynamics in this policy area. By contrast, the Trump administration has focused more directly on the significance of recent technological innovation by China, but has not found it possible to develop a coordinated approach to dealing with it.
Highlights
Much of the literature on China–U.S relations accepts that the relationship began to deteriorate in the second decade of the twenty-first century, and that the Trump administration has accelerated the deterioration
There has always been something of a nexus between economic and security issues in U.S thinking about China, though that nexus has pulled in different directions during different eras
The outlook for the U.S.–China relationship is bleak, as the United States heads into another presidential election campaign where candidates, as well as the incumbent, are likely to continue to identify China as a major adversary and the central challenger to the “rules-based order”
Summary
Much of the literature on China–U.S relations accepts that the relationship began to deteriorate in the second decade of the twenty-first century, and that the Trump administration has accelerated the deterioration. The first part of our definition focuses on developments in technologies that have both high commercial and military value These developments have led to a growing perception in the United States that China’s significant advances in acquiring and developing new technologies may allow it to set global standards in these areas as well as constrain U.S strategic choices. Such concerns heighten competitive dynamics associated with the early acquisition of new technologies, the mastery of which is assumed to determine a country’s global positioning. At one end of the spectrum, it has been both more demanding in the structural changes it requires China to make to its policies, while at the other end, it has often appeared satisfied were a deal to be reached in which China would buy more American goods
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