That would be reasonable, but China has had such an advantage for so long that just getting them to a level playing field will appear to be a devastating loss. This has been furthered by how the situation has been portrayed in the media in both China and the US and around the world, with the US as the aggressor. I believe this has caused the Chinese government to miscalculate, thinking the US will lose support and back down. Instead they have been backed into a corner. Saving face is life or death for the Chinese government, so the US getting an advantageous deal would require literally world war III and I don't think anyone involved is stupid enough to actually try to make that happen.
I expect that the tariffs will stay in place permanently because any acceptable deal would require the Chinese publicly harassing their own people on behalf of the US government, and there is no way the US could enforce that. So the easiest solution are tariffs that will rebalance trade naturally, and probably the world polarizing into two main economic zones, US-centric and China-centric. And then we all just try not to kill each other for the forseeable future.
The thing that really annoys me about this is that if China would just be patient and play by the rules, be genuinely friendly to its neighbors, it would take them like 20 or 30 years longer but then the whole world would just place the crown on their head and they would peacefully become the world's only superpower. Naturally, maybe even justly. Now we all get misery because of impatience.
> The thing that really annoys me about this is that if China would just be patient and play by the rules, be genuinely friendly to its neighbors, it would take them like 20 or 30 years longer but then the whole world would just place the crown on their head and they would peacefully become the world's only superpower. Naturally, maybe even justly. Now we all get misery because of impatience.
just playing the devils advocate but, couldn’t the same have be said about the us (e.g imf, world bank, regime change wars etc)?
Old US money has considered China a threat for over 2 centuries, they are very aware of the threat China poses because their wealth was accumulated during China's destruction.
China is an economic threat because it will inevitably be superior to the US economy. India is an economic threat for the same reason.
In regards to your last point about being patient, both the US and China know that waiting an additional 20-30 years will be at the detriment of China as they cannot compete with US population replacement levels. Compare the following graphs: US projected population: https://i.imgur.com/0UN8eNy.jpg, China projected population: https://i.imgur.com/yDsLnnb.jpg.
Actually China has longstanding demographic, environmental and political problems that make its eventual dominance far from certain. They're moving away from the one-child policy too late, they're deep into the modern low-fertility-preference zone now (but more so than other modern countries because of environmental constraints), and there is no prospect of significant immigration to pick up the slack.
I expect that the tariffs will stay in place permanently because any acceptable deal would require the Chinese publicly harassing their own people on behalf of the US government, and there is no way the US could enforce that. So the easiest solution are tariffs that will rebalance trade naturally, and probably the world polarizing into two main economic zones, US-centric and China-centric. And then we all just try not to kill each other for the forseeable future.
The thing that really annoys me about this is that if China would just be patient and play by the rules, be genuinely friendly to its neighbors, it would take them like 20 or 30 years longer but then the whole world would just place the crown on their head and they would peacefully become the world's only superpower. Naturally, maybe even justly. Now we all get misery because of impatience.