US-China decoupling

When Donald Trump was elected US President in 2016, almost all of M Group Corporation’s high-end hotel furniture fittings were made in China. Now, after four years of being pummeled by anti-dumping duties, tariffs and extreme political volatility, about half are made in China, with the balance of production scattered around Vietnam, Malaysia and Eastern Europe. “We eventually came up with a solution, and the only real winner was my frequent flier program,” said the American company’s president H David Murray. “My eldest son and I traveled just about all over the world to find resources.” First Trump slapped 341% anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made quartz worktops, then followed up with tari

If Donald Trump and Joe Biden are to be believed, the upcoming presidential election is the most consequential in American history. But the race is also being closely watched around the world and few are following more closely than those whose lives and livelihoods are wrapped up in the US-China relationship. A seemingly endless cascade of actions in recent weeks – ranging from sanctions against Chinese officials over human rights abuses and their handling of Hong Kong, to stand-offs over Chinese tech companies – has seen relations fray to their most precarious in decades. To many caught in the middle, the prospect of a new administration in January provides the possibility of a pause, but

The Chinese government has asked the US to stop deepening its unofficial diplomatic relations with Taiwan, after Washington’s announcement of a new economic dialogue with the island. “We called on the US to ... stop official interaction with Taiwan in all forms,” said Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday. Hua described the US Taiwan Relations Act, which allows for de facto diplomatic relations, as “illegal” and “invalid,” adding that it broke the one-China principle – under which Beijing insists that any country with which it has diplomatic relations must sever official links with Taipei. On Monday, US assistant secretary of state David Stilwell said

Lawmakers in Washington have introduced a bill to change the way the federal government refers to the leader of China, prohibiting the use of the term “president.” The Name the Enemy Act would require that official US government documents refer to the head of state according to his or her role as head of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. The Chinese leader, currently Xi Jinping, holds three official titles, none of which is president. The titles are head of state (guojia zhuxi, literally “state chairman”), chairman of the central military commission and general secretary of the CCP. Yet the English-speaking world, including President Donald Trump, has generally opted for “president,” whi

After the United States further tightened its restrictions on Chinese telecoms maker Huawei on Monday, analysts had only one word to describe the situation facing the company: impossible. In what has become a major battleground in the growing US-China tech rivalry, the Trump administration – which claims Huawei products could be used to facilitate spying by the Chinese government – has blacklisted a further 38 Huawei affiliates from buying US products. It aims to strangle the Chinese company by cutting off its ability to buy semiconductors produced using American technology. Since May, foreign chip makers using US technology have been required to apply for a license to sell chips to Huawei.

Nearly four in 10 members of an influential American business group are considering relocating from Hong Kong due to the city’s national security law, an indication of rising corporate fears over the sweeping new legislation, a recent poll revealed. Of the 154 firms surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham), 39% said they had plans to move capital, assets or operations out of the city after more details were revealed about the law, a rise from 35.5% of businesses polled in July. The remaining 61% said they had no plans to exit the city. On a personal level, 53% of respondents said they were considering leaving Hong Kong, while 46% said they had no plans to quit the c

US President Donald Trump has ordered fresh restrictions on Chinese-owned apps TikTok and WeChat as tech companies become a focal point of the increasingly bitter stand-off between Beijing and Washington. The Trump administration announced executive orders on Thursday evening banning “to the extent permitted under applicable law, any transaction” with TikTok owner ByteDance, or concerning WeChat via its parent company Tencent, taking effect in 45 days. The executive orders said that the spread of Chinese-owned mobile apps threatened “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” and that data collection by WeChat and TikTok threatened to “allow the Chinese Communis

The United States should prepare for an “ascendant” Communist-led China, according to a report released by Rand Corporation, the US government-funded think tank. The compilers of China’s Grand Strategy: Trends, Trajectories and Long-Term Competition examined how successful the Chinese Communist Party was likely to be in achieving the goals it has set for the country by 2050. They considered four possible futures in which China is “triumphant” (having achieved all of its goals), “ascendant” (having achieved some), “stagnant” (having failed in its ambitions) or “imploding” (the regime is under threat). Compiled for the US military and published last week, the report concluded that “ascendant”

Americans’ negative views toward China have reached a “new historic high” amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report published by the Pew Research Center on Thursday. “Around three-quarters (73%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of China today – the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Center has been measuring these views,” wrote the authors of the report, Laura Silver, Kat Devlin and Christine Huang. “The percentage who say they have a very unfavorable view of China is also at a record high of 42%, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23% said the same.” Pew’s survey is the latest piece of evidence in an impossible-to-miss trend: distrust

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features one important number about China to give you insight into the rising power. 14%: How much China accounted for India’s overall imports in 2019. Last year, commerce between India and China was worth about US$85 billion, making it Delhi’s second-most fruitful trading relationship, behind only the US.  Nearly one-third of India’s imports from China are electronics, such as smartphones and telecommunications equipment. India also heavily imports materials for nuclear reactors and organic chemicals.  But the close economic ties are under threat after a deadly border conflict in June, igniting wide anti-Chinese sentiment in India. The Indian gover