FLASH
Shkruar nga Fareed Zakaria
The US wins through openness and innovation, not tariffs and centralized planning...
The Trump-Xi meeting produced something worthwhile: a ceasefire in the trade war. But that is not the same as a peace agreement, a long-term framework for managing the world's most important relationship.
He stopped the escalation and bought time for both sides. The crucial question now is how America will use that time. The danger is that for several years, Washington, under both Democrats and Republicans, has played by China's rules.
Over the past 10 years, Washington's response to China has looked like an attempt to outdo Beijing by becoming Beijing; by restricting trade, directing supply chains, politicizing investment, and using tariffs as instruments of presidential will.
Some targeted measures to reduce risk are reasonable. But if pushed too far, these measures play to China's strengths and undermine America's.
President Donald Trump likes to play by China’s rules. He seems to admire Xi Jinping’s power: personal, discretionary, centralized. In his second term, he has threatened blanket tariffs, personally intervened in the semiconductor supply chain, sought a government stake in Intel, secured special permits to sell Nvidia chips in China (while taking a 15% cut for the U.S.), and acted as banker in the sale of TikTok.
To some, this seems like a solid deal. In fact, it is dangerously naive. China’s system is built for state intervention. A recent analysis in The Washington Quarterly shows how Beijing has developed a “hybrid model of coercion”: a mix of formal export controls and blacklists with old-fashioned, dark pressure: customs delays, security bans, whispered orders to firms. Its sanctions are deliberately vague with no clear ramps and can be increased or decreased without explanation. Beijing uses ambiguity as a weapon. It has built a system calibrated for state influence and political stability, not for the predictability of the rule of law. If the race becomes one of arbitrary and centralized control, subsidies, threats, and discretion, China has a natural advantage. It fears neither constitutions, nor markets, nor elections.
If America makes this a test of centralized control, it is unlikely to triumph. China can afford pain; it can mobilize industry by decree; it can impose costs without legal restraint. The United States cannot and should not govern that way. No democracy wins by imitating autocracy. America’s strength lies in rules, predictability, and openness. When the United States faced Japan’s technological challenge four decades ago, it did not win by building a national industrial ministry or electing corporate champions. It supported competition, welcomed talent, deepened alliances, protected antitrust, and unleashed venture capital. America did not beat Japan by becoming Japan. It out-innovated Tokyo.
Today, however, the US is moving towards the opposite conclusion, surprisingly. Trump’s tariffs now cover all Chinese goods and increasingly include products from friendly countries. The aim seems less to shape a rules-based trading system than to establish presidential control, to show that markets move when Washington snaps its fingers. That may please a leader who relishes deal-making and dominance. But it erodes the very norms that once made America the world’s magnet for talent and investment.
The results are already visible in the most central region of the long-term balance with China: Southeast Asia. These countries want American investment and presence to balance Beijing — and instead see tariffs, reduced aid, and episodic diplomacy. Trump’s time in Malaysia illustrated the pattern: he was focused on organizing a photo op for a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand (achieved through threats of tariffs) and left before a major security summit could take place. Meanwhile, China arrived offering trade improvements and infrastructure investment and stayed until the last day. Not surprisingly, according to one study, 9 out of 10 Southeast Asian countries have grown closer to China in recent years.
America wins when it builds, not when it destroys. It must deepen ties with Europe and Asia, integrate its economy more closely with democratic partners, invest broadly in semiconductor capacity rather than in specific companies, and maintain an open system that attracts the world’s brightest minds. America must reshape, not constrain, the global trading system.
Strategic decoupling of the US and China in critical technologies is necessary; national security demands it. But there is a big difference between prudent safeguards and a presidency that treats the US economy like the president’s personal portfolio.
We have spent a century proving that innovation thrives in free societies more than in managed ones.
If we make this rivalry a test of who can be more punitive, more closed, more centralized, and more state-driven, China will feel right at home.
If we make it a test of dynamism, open competition, and free alliances, the result is beyond doubt.
The way to win is not to become China, but to remain America, in fact to duplicate what has always made America great. /Adapted from the Washington Post/
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