US-China trapped in a domestic problem blame game

This is the first in a three-part set.

The majority of books on Sino-American relations focuses on opposing ideologies( such as those regarding intellectual property or the South China Sea ) or on aspects of the global order( like multipolarity, identity, and the Thucydides Trap ). But problems also develop as a result of local issues becoming globalized.

Particularly, economic growth presents challenging challenges even though it normally results in domestic stability, political influence, and mutual benefits with other nations.

Due primarily to scientific advancement, the US economy is transitioning from a manufacturing labor to one that provides services. However, US officials from both parties have found it more easy to place the blame for the decline in production work on China than it has been to make tough domestic choices.

Similar to how China’s economy and society, which were initially simpler, become more sophisticated as it develops, it also encounters predictable political and economic difficulties. Instead of accommodating the effects of cultural diversity, Beijing has sought to control them. At the expense of future economic expansion, this leads to ever-tighter social restrictions.

Democratic leaders may find it convenient to place the burdens on foreigners as a result. Exaggerated fear of potential local colour revolutions and the misconception that Russia and China have the same issues result from misidentification of the issues.

The developed world tolerated intellectual property theft, aggressive commercial subsidies, and market entry denial when China was poor and weak, like other poor, poor nations. Currently, China has a sizable business, and these same actions cause significant global anomalies.

In the meantime, the US overreacts to the emergence of new, difficult power, exaggerating both their potential and the risks they present. The US’s reaction to China is now typified by this overblown state anxiety and fear that characterized its responses to the Soviet Union and Japan.

growth and stability

Safety and growth have a very complicated relationship. Development refers to an increase in Economy, a wide-ranging progress in living standards, and technological advancement.

In the long run, successful development tends to increase security at home and influence internationally. Both home consolidation and political influence require financial success.

On June 30, 2021, the Communist Party of China was founded in Shanghai on its 100th celebration, and people are standing next to a monument honoring this event. AFP / Hector Retamal image

Financial success has regularly been essential to achieving power and respect on a global scale. Local balance has also increased as a result of financial success. Similar to how effective economic development in one nation if ultimately benefit other nations and foster a sense of mutual benefit, as has been the case with Japan, the US, Europe, China, and the majority of the world.

However, it also changes equivalent power, relationships, resource conflicts, and other issues. This essay will concentrate on two ways that growth has exacerbated tensions between China and the United States:

  • Development has brought about local social tensions in both the US and China, which leaders have found it convenient to attribute to the other nation.
  • Additionally, it has brought about changes in global jobs that neither nation has successfully handled.

Instead of a focus on joint benefit, the result has been an increase in aggression. These are not the only security issues brought on by growth, and they are far from the sole causes of rising Sino-American conflicts, but they nonetheless deserve attention and are underappreciated.

China is to blame for the US’s men evolution.

Effective development means that the US is moving away from a manufacturing-based hands and toward one that provides solutions. Performance improvement, which makes it possible for more work to be done by fewer employees, is the main driver of that transition.

Since 1947, the rate of decline in production employment has been very constant. For the same reason that agricultural work again disappeared, manufacturing jobs are also disappearing. Automation today enables much more cars to be produced by much fewer workers, much like how big combines once replaced forces of farmers harvesting crops.

The production workforce is transforming into a services workforce inevitably, just as the agricultural workforce once did.

This change results in social anxiety that, if not handled with retraining, relocation, and assurance, can be socially unsettling. Social unrest and social stress have recently plagued the US, most importantly a rise in populism, which has just forced the eviction of several million workers who have not received adequate assistance from their government.

According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s FRED statistics, US manufacturing jobs as a percentage of total non-farm jobs decreased from one-third to about 8 % between 1947 and 2016.

By assisting production workers in transitioning into the services sector and providing twice pensions to the majority who were unable to transfer, China was able to manage a reduction in nearly 45 million state sector jobs in the ten years between 1994 and 2003. Most of those jobs were in the production industry, so the majority of employees had to transition to non-manufacturing positions.

However, the US’s much more gradual change has been destructive, causing social unrest and perhaps a decrease in democratic support. The reason is that neither political gathering in the US has made the transition easier.

The Democrats don’t support policies that may help the workers out of manufacturing because they are dependent on the production unions; instead, they speak pompously of restoring manufacturing jobs.

In September 2023, US President Joe Biden holds barricades with United Auto Workers join people. Common Dreams image

Similar to this, the Republicans won’t give the government the power and resources to ease the transition because their main supporters are powerful teams who want a smaller government and lower taxes.

Instead, both parties find it convenient to attribute what is really an unstoppable home trend to China, globalization, and neoliberalism.

The information that manufacturing jobs decreased steadily from 1947 to 2009 contradicts the macro-idea of a China shock that cost thousands more work than what was occurring naturally. The statistics suggest that there were either unfavorable improvements or that the work would have been” lost” in some other manner.

More recent studies demonstrate that, despite the fact that deal with China directly affects US employment, it also lowers the price of middle goods used by US businesses, directly boosting employment in the US. Contrary to what the majority of Washington officials claim, the shield result is a rise in US employment.

Additionally, General Motors avoided bankruptcy when the Chinese business was opened to US automakers at the start of the new millennium. A few years later, GM could be saved thanks to revenue from China that made up for ongoing costs in the US and EU.

17.9 million individuals work in the US automotive industry, and GM is by far the biggest employer. Without profits from the Chinese market, it is unlikely that any other company could have acquired GM and subsequently saved all or the majority of the jobs.

It’s also possible that the number of jobs lost somewhere in business with China was largely or entirely offset by the jobs saved as a result of the China market opening.

Workers are persuaded by the politicians and leading unions of both parties’ repeated claims that China is to blame for significant job losses, but they are fully aware that neither party is offering efficient guidance.

A reduction in support for democracy, an uprising of enraged democracy that helped Donald Trump win the presidency, a partial shift in traditional high school graduate employee assistance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and an unwarranted rise in the already contentious tensions with China are all effects of this US social dysfunction.

Trump-Biden’s pretense that their sanctions on China will restore manufacturing jobs is likely to cause fatal disillusionment in the long run. Workers are frequently harmed by laws that are presented to them as intended to help them. For example, the taxes imposed by Trump and Biden on titanium, aluminum, and solar panels only are causing hundreds of thousands of work to be lost.

Part 2 of China’s battle against cultural complexity comes next.

Senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government is William H. Overholt( william_ overholten @ harvard.edu ).

Under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, this essay, which was first published in the China International Strategy Review, has been somewhat condensed and republished repeatedly.