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While they are trying to thaw tense relations after more than a year of accusations of different types from both sides, in the background there is a fierce commercial race that is being waged in search of greater dominance in the global sphere. On the one hand, the world’s leading economy seeks to reduce dependence on the Asian giant to have a greater presence in the East and, on the other, Asia’s main economy, which has been slow to recover from the financial ravages of the pandemic.
They are the two largest economic titans in the world, with a long history that has prevented them from enjoying a peaceful commercial relationship.
Each one seeks from its side to capture and retain the greatest international dominance and influence through the sale of its products or development of its industry. The most recent, with respect to the race for semiconductors, in which China has a won track, but in which the United States has found a way to complicate its path in this area.
For Washington, which wants the manufacturing and export of chips to be concentrated in the United States in the future through strategic allies such as Taiwan, it was necessary to veto China from the high-tech chips sold by Micron, the most important in the sector.
A fight that had been with tensions since last year and perhaps the biggest when it comes to the economy.
In 2022, Washington invoked national security reasons to restrict access to high-end semiconductors. At the time it was just an announcement, but the statement was accompanied by strong allegations, such as the fact that Beijing was using American technology to develop advanced military equipment.
Other countries followed in the footsteps of the main world power, and the Netherlands and Japan, large manufacturers of semiconductor technology, announced their own restrictions on exports, but without explicitly citing China.
The APEC summit and the meeting that would thaw tense relations between China and the US
This scenario generated accusations that came and went and for Beijing, relations began to deteriorate even more, alleging that the US purchase ban was not “healthy competition” for the market.
Words that fall on a commercial relationship that, despite the friction, accumulates titanic figures, such as the 760,000 million dollars that both countries add in bilateral trade by 2022.
All this, without mentioning that the fissures at the diplomatic level further obscure the panorama. Both come from about ten months where the accusations and accusations in different areas seem to have not stopped.
APEC: China and the United States seek to relax tensions in favor of their trade relations
At the beginning of the year, the Biden Government shot down a Chinese spy balloon that crossed the territory of the United States, followed by the Xi Jinping Administration’s hacking of the emails of that country’s secretary of commerce.
Then, the big economic blow from the US with the restriction on the export of certain chip manufacturing components and tools, a measure that prevents China from using this technology to increase its military capacity.
China counterattacked and ordered key infrastructure operators not to buy Micron, the leading American semiconductor technology company. According to the American company, about 10% of last year’s $30.8 billion in annual revenue came from China, a fact that will surely complicate the company’s numbers for this year’s earnings.
Later, a long episode of accusations and restrictions on the Chinese TikTok application was replicated in other Western allies such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
And, to complete a tense atmosphere, the still fresh wounds of the visit of the American leader Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan last year, in which all the warnings of Xi Jinping’s Government were ignored and which did not allow China to forget the intentions of The United States and its global role.
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