A lot of attention is being paid these days to America’s relationship with China. And for good reason, because China must decide whether it will be a partner to the U.S. or an adversary. The next few years will determine whether that relationship morphs into something similar to U.S.-Japanese relations — which have been built on mutual respect and cooperation, even as we have competed with Japan — or takes a darker turn, toward distrust and dangerous military and economic conflict.
Right now, China is at the center of two key, interrelated conflicts, both of which could ease or strain its standing with the U.S. The near-term conflict is the powder keg on the Korean peninsula. China has enormous economic and political leverage over North Korea, which it has propped up for decades. It can either lean on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear brinkmanship and make peace with the U.S. and its neighbors, or it can continue to pump aid into the North and undermine efforts directed toward its denuclearization.
A war among the U.S., South Korea and North Korea would not only devastate those countries, but could trigger economic turmoil all across Asia, and so poison U.S.-Chinese relations that it exacerbates the other, longer-term conflict between the two countries: the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute.
For years now, China has taken advantage of U.S. ineptitude in dealing with predatory Chinese trade policies. The list of offenses is long. At the top are ridiculously high Chinese tariffs against U.S. products. A case in point is the 25 percent tariffs against exported American cars, compared with U.S. auto tariffs as low as 2.5 percent. China’s goal was to force U.S. automakers into lopsided deals with Chinese government-supported companies to build cars in China. Only after the Trump administration signaled that it was serious about a fairer U.S.-China trade relationship did China relent and offer to lower its auto import tariffs to 15 percent.
The same goes for below-cost Chinese steel dumped on the U.S. market, which has devastated steel manufacturing in this country and the jobs that go with it. President Trump has been right to confront China with higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel. It may be the only way to compel China to back off its predatory trade practices.