Great Decisions: U.S. – China Trade Rivalry

Speaker: Duncan McCampbell
Join us as we partner again with the Ramsey County
Library, Global Minnesota, and the Foreign Policy
Association for our annual Great Decisions series on
the most critical international issues facing America.
Study the issues and join the discussions led by expert
speakers. Ten copies of the Briefing Book for this series
are available for checkout through the generosity of
Global Minnesota.

[tomcullen]

I watched your May Webinar. Very thoughtful, learned quite a bit! I was wondering how you think the US and its allies could deter China from blockading Taiwan (or even invading)? Their navy is growing and they have 50% of world ship building capacity (US has .3% currently). General Milley testified before Congress that Chinese military spending is on par with the US when you factor in pay and benefits for US military personnel. You mentioned the Chinese government is not communist. The new book on Xi Jinping Thought by Steve Tsang says they are Leninists (dictatorship of the party). Neither the webinar or this video mention much about the effect of China's rise has had on the US economy; 5 T dollar trade deficit and 3 T dollar IP theft over the last 22 years. The change in the de minimus rule in 2015 allows Shein and Temu to ship clothing direct from Chinese warehouses to US consumers (2 million packages a day) at very low prices without any taxes or tariffs. This clothing may be made with forced labor by Uyghurs. Many of our clothing companies cannot compete with this influx. It is probably adding several hundred billion more to our annual deficit in trade with China but no one knows the true value of these items. When you look at our trade deficit with all countries we are running trillion dollar trade deficits every year. This policy does not seem sustainable for the US.