For subscribers
How scared should you be of ‘the China squeeze’?
President Xi Jinping masters the dark arts of the trade war.
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
A container ship leaving Qingdao port in China’s eastern Shandong province.
PHOTO: AFP
The Economist
“China beats you with trade, Russia beats you with war,” mused US President Donald Trump on Aug 11. His reflection came mere hours before he extended a fragile trade truce with China for another 90 days.
After months of tit-for-tat tariffs, the Sino-American trade war has settled into uneasy stasis. But China is using the time to hone a sophisticated arsenal of devastating economic weaponry. Even as the sides contemplate a broader deal to stabilise the planet’s most important trading relationship – worth US$659 billion (S$845 billion) each year – China knows that its power is not in what it buys, but in what it sells.
