Política EUA-China: Biden vai continuar Trump? - John Pomfret (WP)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/global-opinions/

Biden could execute a strong and effective China policy ... thanks to Trump

Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands with then-Vice President Joe Biden inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2013. (Pool New/Reuters)

Opinion by 

John Pomfret

The Washington Post, August 21, 2020 at 2:45 p.m. GMT-3

The main beneficiary of the Trump administration’s China policy could be …. Joe Biden. If Biden triumphs in November, he will inherit a China policy that will present his administration with an opportunity to bolster America’s position in the world and design a smarter U.S. response to an increasingly bold, authoritarian and unfriendly People’s Republic.
President Trump’s scattershot China policy has mixed good ideas with dumb ones. Silly threats to ban apps like TikTok and WeChat vie with smarter moves to cut some Chinese firms off from American capital and technology. Wrongheaded plans to limit the number of Chinese students in American universities bump up against a necessary push to crack down on espionage. An embarrassing bromance between Trump and China’s “brilliant” authoritarian leader Xi Jinping competes with U.S. support of the Uighurs, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The Trump administration should be credited for waking the United States up to the challenge China represents. Previous administrations were either naive or asleep at the switch. The Obama administration was so intent on pursuing a climate accord that included China that it chose not to walk and chew gum at the same time, downplaying issues such as China’s gross violations of international law in, and militarization of, the South China Sea. President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was so focused on the “global war on terror” that his administration ignored China’s widespread theft of U.S. intellectual property and moves to replace the United States as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Trump administration’s first National Security Strategy, issued in December 2017, acknowledged the reality that China is and will be for the foreseeable future a “strategic competitor” of the United States. And while previous administrations focused on engaging China, the Trump administration has stressed the threats posed by China’s government, political ideology and economic system. In so doing, the Trump administration instituted a smorgasbord of policies. Should Biden win the White House, he and his team will be able to strengthen the best of these and disregard the rest.

Take tariffs. Biden has criticized Trump’s trade war with China, specifically because China’s counter-tariffs have hurt U.S. farmers. The tariffs also reflect Trump’s woolly-headed obsession with America’s trade deficit when he should have concentrated on China’s massive theft of intellectual property instead. But, with tariffs still in place, should Biden enter the White House, he’d have leverage. He shouldn’t do what past presidents have done and get rid of a policy to show good will. China will only pocket that advantage. If China wants the United States to cancel the tariffs, it’s got to give a little. Sure, the tariffs have failed as an overarching policy, but they are hurting China and Biden has a chance to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He should.

News media access is one of the worst aspects of the U.S.-China relationship now. The playing field hasn’t been level for decades. The Trump administration has moved to cut the number of Chinese journalists representing state-run media outlets in the United States. China countered by expelling all the American reporters, save one, from the New York Times, The Post and the Wall Street Journal. Biden would inherit this mess with the opportunity not to get it back to “normal,” but to make it reciprocal. Set the number of Chinese correspondents in America and the number of American correspondents in China at the same level, say, 150 positions, and simplify the visa process, too. Make the offer publicly; it’s a patently fair deal.

On Trump’s first day in office, he pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal among the freer economies bordering the Pacific. The deal was drawn up to respond specifically to the mercantilist economic challenges from China. Surprisingly, when the United States left, the TPP didn’t collapse. Instead, the other 11 nations, led by Japan and Australia, ratified it. Should he win the White House, Biden will have the opportunity to reenter the pact. Of course, some renegotiation will be necessary to appease the anti-trade wing of the Democratic Party. But the opportunity is an enormous one to reassert U.S. leadership. The same holds true for the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization.

A more united international response to China could allow Biden to build off the Trump administration’s policies to limit Beijing’s heretofore unfettered access to U.S. capital markets and U.S. technology. Such moves were pretty much unthinkable in the past, and Trump’s China experts should be credited with thinking outside the box.

The Trump administration has banned U.S. computer-chip manufacturers from selling a wide array of chips to Huawei. The logic for taking such a move is compelling. Huawei has reportedly broken international trade sanctions in Iran and North Korea. In addition, under China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, Huawei, which seeks to build 5G infrastructure around the world, must spy for China if asked by China’s spy agencies.
When it comes to accessing U.S. capital, the Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended a plan that would compel Chinese companies with shares traded on American stock exchanges to give up their listings unless they comply with U.S. accounting requirements. Chinese firms have raised tens of billions of dollars on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Some significant accounting frauds, such as a $300 million scandal involving Luckin Coffee, a Nasdaq-listed Chinese competitor to Starbucks, have alarmed American investors and the Treasury Department.

Biden shouldn’t toss out this section of the Trump China-policy buffet. But he needs to improve it by getting America’s allies on his side.

Read more:

Josh Rogin: Trump’s China hawks are loose and not wasting any time

Times Wang and Yang Jianli: A WeChat ban will hurt ordinary citizens. There are better ways to hold China accountable.

The Post’s View: Trump’s anti-China strategy at home will hurt U.S. companies around the world

The Post’s View: China has just broken its solemn promise to Hong Kong

John Pomfret

John Pomfret, a former Washington Post bureau chief in Beijing, is the author of “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present.”Follow

Otaviano Canuto on US-China trade war and its impact on Latin America

Latin America Is Not Benefiting from the U.S.-China Trade War

Otaviano Canuto

Center for Macroeconomics and Development, September 16, 2019

https://www.cmacrodev.com/latin-america-is-not-benefiting-from-the-u-s-china-trade-war/

Has the U.S. trade war with China been good for Latin America?

An increase in Chinese demand for primary products from the region, as well as recent news of production transfers from China to Mexico, might give the impression that it has.

But any positive short-term effects of the confrontation should also take into account its negative medium- and long-term impacts on the region and on global growth. And the fact is that the overall trade and GDP destruction effects of trade wars tend to outweigh gains from shifts in trade activity.

That’s why Latin America should hope that the exchange of goodwill acts between the U.S. and China in recent weeks will be a harbinger of a more peaceful phase in international trade.

On Sept. 12, Donald Trump announced a postponement from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15 of planned U.S. tariff increases on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Beijing had previously released a list of 16 product types that would be left out of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. A new round of high-level trade negotiations is scheduled to happen early next month, when China is expected to offer increases of purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

In a sign of how fickle the movement of agricultural trade from one country can be, unwinding trade diversion that has been a boon to parts of Latin America will certainly be part of any package offered by China in its negotiations with the U.S.

Some of that movement has indeed been significant. On Sept. 13, Argentina’s agriculture minister said that China had opened the way for value-added soy meal from his country, instead of selling only raw soy beans. Brazil, in part thanks to trade deviation, is poised to overcome the U.S. as the world’s largest soy producer this year.

There have also the trade diversion gains by Mexico through the partial replacement of Chinese manufacturing supplies, as well as recent announcements from multiple companies of plans to shift factories from China, Japan and Korea to Mexico. While China’s share of U.S. imports fell from 21% to 17.7% in the first quarters of 2019 and 2018, respectively, Mexico captured part of China’s sales in products subject to U.S. tariff retaliation and moved up from 13.5% to 14.5%.

Still, the U.S. attitude with respect to trade and its connection to other aspects of its policy agenda – including recent threats to Mexico demanding actions on immigration – should curb the enthusiasm with which this type of movement is received.

One must also consider the overall trade and GDP destruction effects of the trade war. Both the Chinese and U.S. economies are hurting.

In China, where trade between the two countries corresponds to a larger share of the economy than in the U.S., growth deceleration is mainly due to domestic issues of rebalancing and debt. But these have been aggravated by primary impacts of export losses and trade/production transfer abroad.

On the U.S. side, farmers and ranchers have been hit by plummeting sales to China, particularly because China’s retaliatory tariffs have targeted areas where Trump obtained many votes in the 2016 election. Additionally, consumers and domestic producers have suffered the burden of tariffs in the form of higher prices of final goods and inputs. Not by chance, signs of growth deceleration in the U.S. economy have been clearest among tradable sectors.

Both the U.S. and China’s partners have felt the consequences. Asian and European economies – especially industry-intensive Germany – have felt the impact of the global trade slowdown and of disruptions in value chains. In Latin America, the downward effects of China’s deceleration on demand has hit prices of copper in Chile and minerals in Peru. In fact, as recently explained in the World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook, the imposition of both commodity-specific and broad-based tariffs tend to negatively affect regions with large resource wealth, such as Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Indirect effects of the trade war, via higher caution in capital spending decisions and through financial markets, can also be expected to hurt the region. Weakening global trade and heightened trade uncertainty have been major factors behind recent downward revisions to global growth by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A newly released report by economists of the U.S. Federal Reserve suggests trade policy uncertainty as potentially leading to a haircut of 1% in U.S. GDP growth through the beginning of next year.

Financial markets have viewed the twists and shouts on trade policies as an important component of their activity. This is less because of the size of the direct economic effects of tariff increases than because of fears that the confrontation could extend beyond trade in agriculture and manufactured goods. Finally, an ongoing loosening of monetary policies in advanced economies could lead to currency pressures and, ultimately, a run to the safety of U.S. treasury bonds that would lead to capital outflows and currency depreciation in Latin America and elsewhere.

All in all, even from the standpoint of those Latin American economies accruing short-term gains from the trade war between U.S. and China, the negatives will likely outweigh the positives. A dispute between the two largest economies leads one to recall – as Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno recently has – the old Swahili proverb:

“When elephants fight, the grass gets crushed; when elephants make love, the grass gets crushed!”

Canuto is principal at the Center for Macroeconomics and Development and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute. He is a former vice president and executive director at the World Bank. Contact: ocanuto@cmacrodev.com

FMI: guerra comercial EUA-China ameaça crescimento mundial em 2019

IstoÉ Dinheiro, 23/05/19

O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) advertiu, nesta quinta-feira (23), que a escalada da guerra comercial entre Estados Unidos e China ameaça o crescimento global em 2019 - AFP

O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) advertiu, nesta quinta-feira (23), que a escalada da guerra comercial entre Estados Unidos e China “ameaçará” o crescimento global em 2019, o que minará a confiança e aumentará os preços para os consumidores.

“Os consumidores nos Estados Unidos e na China são inequivocamente os perdedores das tensões comerciais”, disse a economista-chefe do FMI, Gita Gopinath, em uma publicação do blog, refutando diretamente a afirmação do presidente dos EUA, Donald Trump, de que as tarifas são pagas pela China e geram receita para os Estados Unidos.

Depois das grandes guerras globais e da Guerra Fria, no seculo XX, agora as grandes guerras economicas - Global Times (China)

Depois do assassinato do Arquiduque austríaco em Sarajevo, a irresponsabilidade e a arrogância de imperadores "medievais" – sim, imbuídos do militarismo aristocrático do Antigo Regime, como argumentou Arno Mayer – precipitaram o mundo no primeiro grande conflito global, a Grande Guerra, que foi seminal para desmantelar tudo o que havia sido construído no longo século XIX em matéria de paz e de cooperação internacional, no contexto da segunda onda de globalização, e para precipitar não só a Europa, mas todo o mundo num ciclo infernal de destruições materiais e de loucuras políticas, desembocando no segundo grande conflito global, ainda mais destruidor.
Digo isto para demonstrar como a IRRESPONSABILIDADE de certos dirigentes políticos pode trazer enormes turbulências, que destroem riquezas, desestruturam países, permitem a ascensão de demagogos, de populistas, eventualmente até de psicopatas perigosos.
Acredito que possamos estar em face de uma dessas novas rupturas, provocadas por um dirigente político altamente IRRESPONSÁVEL, capaz de precipitar uma guerra econômica que só vai destruir riquezas, em seu próprio país, e nos demais.
Reafirmo minha condenação absoluta dos gestos irresponsáveis do atual presidente americano, capaz de causar prejuízos aos seu próprio país, e fazer retroceder a ordem econômica mundial.
O Brasil não está imune, direta ou indiretamente, a esse tipo de populismo insensato e irresponsável.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

China vows to counter US tariffs

Global Times,  21:43 UTC+8, 2019-05-10   

Shanghai Daily, 10/05/2019

https://www.shine.cn/biz/finance/1905104478/ 

After months of truce, the trade war between China and the US escalated on Friday, after the US shrugged off widespread warnings and moved to hike tariffs on Chinese goods, drawing a firm response from China, which vowed to retaliate.

Though Chinese and US officials are continuing talks, the renewed tensions between the world's two largest economies significantly complicated ongoing negotiations, dimmed the prospects of any potential trade agreement and stoked fear that a full-fledged trade war could still break out. And the US is to blame for the risky turn of events, Chinese officials and analysts stressed.

After days of repeated threats, US officials on Friday noon (Beijing Time) increased an existing 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25 percent, breaking a truce reached by the leaders of the two countries in December 2018 and highlighting the unreliable and unpredictable nature of the US administration.

Minutes after the US tariff hike took effect, China struck back. In a statement, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that China "will have to take necessary countermeasures," while still urging the US to meet China halfway in ongoing negotiations in Washington.

Even as tensions escalated, officials pushed through with the 11th round of negotiations as they try to make a last-ditch effort to bring the months-long talks back on track for a trade agreement.

The Chinese delegation was seen arriving at the Office of the US Trade Representative at around 5 pm on Thursday US time and left about an hour and half later. The talks will continue on Friday morning, according to US media reports.

 "We are now at a very delicate place, where further negotiations have become significantly more difficult… the risk of a further escalation also increased," Song Guoyou, director of Fudan University's Center for Economic Diplomacy, told the Global Times on Friday. "We cannot allow this to become normal. That would be dangerous."

Forced retaliation

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that China does not want to fight a trade war, but Washington's aggressiveness and belligerence left them no other option but to fight back, analysts said.

"China will also have to make good on its own words, otherwise, it will be at a huge disadvantage to the US team at the negotiations," said He Weiwen, a former senior Chinese trade official, told the Global Times on Friday, referring to China's earlier vow to retaliate if the US went ahead with the tariff threat.

Though the MOFCOM on Friday did not say what countermeasures China will take and when it will implement them, there are many ways China can inflict pain on the US economy, according to analysts.

"The most direct countermeasure would be raising existing tariffs on US goods or imposing tariffs on more US products," Song said. "However, we cannot rule out other policy tools."

Song pointed out that with the overall trade relationship souring, US companies' operations and investments in China could also be impacted, given the rising anger among the Chinese public toward the US.

In the wake of renewed tensions, calls on Chinese social media to boycott US products rose, including US films, iPhones and computers. "Why retaliate? All we need to do is boycotting US products," one internet user said on Sina Weibo.

Chinese analysts also suggested that China could target the US financial system, the backbone of the US economy, including unloading China's holdings of US Treasury bonds. Big US corporations and products, such as agricultural goods, will also likely encounter more scrutiny in China.

"Such an impact on US companies and industries will not be less severe than from the tariffs," Song said.

Many US business groups have expressed strong opposition to the tariffs. On Wall Street, US stocks have also suffered losses in the past few days, as have stocks in major bourses across the world.

Complicated outlook

While it remains to be seen whether trade officials could still make a breakthrough at the talks, it is clear that the escalation complicates the talks and dims prospects for a deal, analysts said.

"I don't expect too much from this round of talks," a source in Washington familiar with the talks told the Global Times on Friday, noting that US President Donald Trump had miscalculated.

"He initially wanted to show how he forced China into making concessions," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "But that is like forcing China not to sign the deal quickly".

However, citing US eagerness, other observers have also argued that there is still a chance for the two sides to reach a deal.

"I think there is still a chance for the two countries to reach an agreement," Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute of International Business at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday, noting that the two sides still appear eager to reach a deal, despite their tough rhetoric.

In what appears to be an attempt to leave room for talks, US officials offered a grace period for the tariff hike. Trump also said on Thursday that a deal is still "possible" this week and that he might speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone, CNBC reported.

Asked about the phone call, Geng Shuang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that he was not aware of such a plan but the two leaders have maintained close contact.