Bridging the Pacific: Toward Free Trade and Investment Between China and the United States
The terrain of the world trading system is shifting as countries in Asia, Europe, and North America negotiate new trade agreements. However, none of these talks include both China and the United States, the two biggest economies in the world. In this pathbreaking study, C. Fred Bergsten, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, and Sean Miner argue that China and the United States would benefit substantially from a bilateral free trade and investment accord. In the process, they contend, each country would also achieve progress in addressing its internal economic challenges, such as the low saving rate in the United States. Achieving greater trade and investment integration could be accomplished with one comprehensive effort or through step-by-step negotiations over key issues. The authors call on the United States to seek liberalization of China's services sector as vital to securing an agreement, and they explain that such contentious matters as cyberespionage and currency manipulation be handled through parallel negotiations rather than in the agreement itself. This is an important study of the benefits and difficulties of a complex matter that could yield dividends to the two economies and help stabilize the security and well-being of the rest of the world.
China and the United States: The Contest for Global Economic Leadership
This paper considers whether there is a “Thucydides trap” in the world economy, referring to the inherent conflict between incumbent and challenger. It assesses the impact of President Trump's alienation of traditional US allies, which threatens to splinter the “hegemonic coalition” and even push China and Europe together, and his convergence toward some Chinese norms on trade and even politics. It outlines three possible systemic scenarios: a “G0” in which the US is no longer willing to lead but China is not yet able or willing, and whether such a (likely) regime will be stable or unstable; a new “G1,” sooner or later, led by China; and a cooperative “G2” in which the US and China agree to share leadership. It traces the evolution of actual leadership initiatives of the two countries in recent years. It compares US and Chinese attitudes on key systemic issues and concludes with an appraisal of “an international economic order with Chinese characteristics,” a world in which the state plays a greater role relative to market economics, the rule of law defers increasingly to voluntary arrangements, and politics tilt toward central government control more than democracy.
Enhancing China's Medium-Term Growth Prospects: The Path to a High-Income Economy
China’s current growth model — which has delivered steady and robust growth for two decades and lifted some 500 million individuals out of poverty — has become too reliant on credit and investment, and has begun to experience diminishing returns. Delays in advancing the government’s reform agenda will mean that vulnerabilities continue to grow and the probability of stalled convergence increases. On the other hand, with reforms to accelerate TFP growth and shift the economy away from its continued reliance on capital accumulation, China can grow at a healthy pace and maintain its convergence toward the level of high income economies. Evidence from China’s provinces indicates that there is room to improve productivity and sustain such a convergence toward the level of more prosperous economies.