China cannot co-exist economically with the USA

The argument

The argument holds that the conflict between China and the United States is structural rather than personal, and that it therefore cannot be settled by negotiation between particular leaders. Its starting claim is about how China's position was built: on economic practices proponents characterise as unfair and at times illegal, including espionage and the regular theft of intellectual property. If a rising economy has grown in part by acquiring what others spent to develop, then the gains on one side correspond to losses on the other, and the relationship is not one in which both parties are made better off by the same arrangement. A second strand concerns the terms of exchange themselves. The US President Donald Trump has regularly cited China as a currency manipulator, deliberately devaluing its currency to game the international trade system. The charge matters to the argument because a manipulated exchange rate is not a competitive advantage earned within the rules; it is an adjustment of the rules by one player, and it makes the resulting trade balance a product of policy rather than of productivity. These tensions have led to a trade war, with both parties announcing tariffs on each other's goods. Proponents of this position read the escalation as diagnostic rather than incidental. Tariffs are a costly instrument, imposed on one's own importers and consumers as much as on a rival, and a state that reaches for them repeatedly is signalling that it regards the underlying relationship as unsustainable rather than merely unsatisfactory. That reading supports the conclusion. Some have speculated that the trade war is not simply the manifestation of a personal grudge by the US President, but a realisation among policy officials in America that there is room for only one economic super power in the world. If that assessment is what drives policy, then the dispute will outlast any individual administration, and China's rise will not be peaceful, because the position it is rising into is already occupied.

Premises

Counter-arguments

China remains the largest manufacturing base in the world and is integral to the functioning of the international supply chain. Its future prosperity is directly linked with this role. Therefore it would not be in China's interest to allow a conflict that might jeopardise its industrial base. Aside from manufacturing, China also has a burgeoning middle class who aspire to high living standards and a rich elite who enjoy the ability to invest their wealth abroad. The aspirations of both these influential groups within China are tied to the continuation of open markets between China and the rest of the world.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] China's economic prospering has positive knock-on effects for the rest of the world.