In Part I of this interview, we asked Nanjing University’s Executive Dean of the School of International Studies, Zhu Feng, and Johns Hopkins SAIS Dean James Steinberg what they had expected to come of the US-China presidential summit that took place last month, what they expected of summits in general, and whether the US was to blame for China’s recent economic woes.

In this second installment, each expert will speak on the future of the ongoing trade war, China’s prospects for economic resurgence in 2024, and the role that “China hawks” and others within Washington’s political elite can be expected to play in US-China relations within the coming years. 

Editor’s note: Readers may notice a marked difference in style, not only in content, between the responses provided by our featured experts. It should be noted that, for this piece, Dean Zhu Feng provided his responses via email, while Dean Steinberg spoke with us in person. 

Responses have only been very lightly edited for clarity. No viewpoints or statements have been excluded. 

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Do you believe that Presidents Biden and Xi will begin taking steps to resolve the trade war? Also, economic growth momentum has generally remained strong in the United States, whereas it’s been a different story in China. If the two countries’ leadership can agree to reduce the quantity of trade sanctions imposed upon each other, do you believe that China’s growth will bottom out this year and rebound next year?

Dean Zhu Feng: Hopefully Presidents Xi and Biden will reach consensus to resolve the trade war and repeal high-tech sanctions imposed by the US. It would be a key indicator as to how successful their summit was. But in the short run, I am still not confident that calling off the trade war and loosening tech sanctions will take place soon. Trade and high tech restrictions have become central to Washington’s strategy within the US-imposed New Cold War – pouncing upon China in order to depress its full competitive potential. 

Based on my understanding of American strategic culture, the Biden Administration will not give up neck-in-neck competition with China. One of the ironies so far in our bilateral ties is that no Biden Administration officials can clearly explain the difference between ”decoupling” and “de-risking.” To be honest, I see little chance thus far that the Biden Administration will reduce economic and high-tech restrictions on China.

Dean James Steinberg: I don’t think that these particular trade barriers are trivial, but they’re not macro in the sense of them being a major factor in China’s growth. I think it’s also important to disaggregate the various measures, right – you have the Trump-era tariffs, which are one set of trade measures, and then you have the more recent export controls from the Biden administration.

 I think that there are certainly a lot of people and a lot of experts who feel that the Trump era tariffs, the 301s, are counterproductive and they’re not helping. They’re not hurting China and they’re not helping the United States. But I also don’t think it’s very likely that we’re going to see any movement on that in an election year. The likelihood that we’re going to see any change in US trade policy in the next 12 months is very low. We saw this in connection with the Congress’s lack of enthusiasm with IPEF. 

So I believe that the tariffs, in particular, are something that might get revisited post-election, but I don’t see anything on that (right now). And, on the technology controls, there’s, as you know, broad support for these. I certainly don’t see any likelihood that the United States is going to revise those export controls in the near future.

Some American scholars believe that, while the adjustment of domestic financial policy instruments continues to be the primary means of controlling inflation, the Federal Reserve will actually not be able to address long-term inflation in the United States without settling the trade war. 

Dean Zhu: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. Any consideration of lifting trade war and trade restrictions on China lies within the US’s domestic cost-benefit calculation. The reality has turned out to be very clear: the Federal Reserve will not be able to control long-term inflation in the US effectively without a phased settlement of the trade war. Therefore, it would be positive for the US and China to return to normal trade relations and adhere to economic interdependence. 

But the question is this: will preferences in trade for near-shoring and friend-shoring being established right now significantly counteract American demand for imports from China? We have to wait and see. But I believe that China could never, in fact, be fully neglected in global commercial supply chains. 

Dean Steinberg: Again, I’m not an economist, but I think that the tariffs undoubtedly have a small impact, a negative impact, and increase inflation by definition. Protectionism raises prices. We know that. I mean, we teach that in elementary economics here. But do I think that’s a major driver of inflation in the United States? No. And two, do we see some signs that the Fed is being successful in addressing inflation? Yes. We saw the numbers this week, which showed a softening of inflation. So, again, I personally believe that we ought to be looking closely at, especially, the Trump tariffs, but I don’t think they’re having a big impact either on inflation in the United States or on slowing growth in China.

Speaking of opinions within Congress, many lawmakers would argue that the trade war has been beneficial, since it has allowed the United States to widen the gap with China in terms of economic strength and technological self-sufficiency? Do you think there are enough voices—for lack of a better term, hawks—that have this opinion, who are happy to see China decreasing its place on the world stage? Would you say that despite whatever may have happened in the meeting yesterday, US-China bilateral relations as a whole could continue to have a pessimistic outlook, and that these negative undertones could persist throughout the rest of this decade?

Dean Zhu: It’s not only American lawmakers that, supposedly, have devised a way to suppress China, nor have a big bunch of Biden administration officials been uniquely responsible for these thoughts. American mainstream media also think this way. In the short and medium run, the trade war and continued tech restrictions would  undoubtedly widen the gap with China in terms of economic strength and technological self-sufficiency. China’s economy truly would ache.

Yet, for the Americans, there are downsides if they pursue this approach. First of all, such China-pouncing acts are a double-edged sword, and the US has no way to escape from pains when enforcing these acts. Secondly, China’s economic growth potential will never be irreparably damaged by reckless pounding from the Americans. The third stems from the fact that Chinese and Americans ought to stand in unison on the normative principles of human rights, freedom and fair competition. Continuing to pound China for the purpose of maintaining America’s unchallenged hegemonic dominance would be a dramatic and brutal denial of US-sponsored universal values.

Dean Steinberg: It’s a complicated question. I don’t know if you all were present at the conversation I had with Congressman Krishnamoorthi a couple of days ago, but it’s difficult to disentangle the elements of the policy that are directed at weakening China as opposed to kind of just classic protectionism. You know, when I raised the question of the 301 tariffs with Congressman Krishnamoorthi, he said it wasn’t about hurting China. It was about protecting the business he talked about in Wisconsin. 

Protectionism is protectionism. And there are a lot of members (of Congress) who believe that it is appropriate for the United States to take measures to favor America, that globalization has harmed our industrial base and harmed American workers. So, I think the primary motivation in Congress is not to weaken China. The primary motivation is classic arguments for protectionism. 

You can agree with them or disagree with them, and they often can have a tinge of being anti-China. But the main thing is – and you can see this in legislation like the IRA, which actually harms not just China, but also some of our allies – I think the majority of the people who are supporting these provisions are doing it largely because they believe that American workers and jobs deserve more protection than they were getting from a kind of free trade environment. 

There’s no doubt that there are some members of Congress who, I think, affirmatively believe our strategy should be to weaken China, but I don’t believe that’s the majority. And you heard Congressman Krishnamoorthi say that that was not his objective, right? I think that’s a really interesting reflection. And it’s certainly been the commentary that we’re hearing from the administration, from Secretary Yellen and others. So again, there are some, but I don’t know that that’s the dominant perspective behind these economic measures.

(Follow-up) You raise a good point. We’ve noticed that comment from Secretary Yellen that the world is large enough for the two countries to succeed.

And she specifically said we’re not trying to hurt China. 

This concludes Part II of our bidirectional interview with Dean Zhu Feng and Dean Steinberg. Part III will focus on their reactions to the Xi-Biden summit, which had only just occurred at the time these interviews were conducted.