Competition between the United States and China temporarily halted

The debate surrounding the intensification of competition between the U.S. and China under President Trump's tenure has been a topic of much discussion. However, a new theory by an unnamed author suggests a different narrative.

The author, who previously wrote extensively about U.S.-China competition during the Biden years, has proposed that the competition may not necessarily intensify under Trump's presidency. This theory challenges the widespread belief that the competition would escalate upon Trump's return to power.

Trump's foreign policy strategy appears to be a shift towards a neutral, isolationist stance. Unlike the Biden administration, Trump's strategy involves dividing the world into regional spheres of influence, ceding influence in Asia to China and influence in Europe to Russia.

This strategy, however, does not mean a lack of focus on China. The U.S. political stance under President Trump regarding competition with China involves a security-oriented approach that includes trade controls, investment restrictions, and technology transfer limitations. Measures like partial decoupling and containment are employed to counter China's mercantilist trade and industrial policies, which are seen as a threat to U.S. global dominance.

The author's view suggests that the U.S. isn't putting much effort into the competition with China at the moment. This could be due to America focusing on domestic issues, including popular exhaustion and elite distraction.

Interestingly, China seems to be focusing more on its own economic problems rather than continuing its competition with the U.S. The Second China Shock, as China's post-pandemic industrial policy flooded the world with cheap goods, threatened manufacturers in every other country, and plunged opinions of China in the U.S. and elsewhere around 2019.

The pause in the U.S.-China rivalry is also evident in Trump's stance on certain issues. For instance, Trump came out against the TikTok divestment bill and denounced the Biden-era industrial policies.

The Ukraine war increasingly felt like a proxy war between China and NATO, but Trump's foreign policy strategy does not seem to prioritize competition with China as much as it did during the Biden administration.

After 7 months of the Trump presidency, the author is starting to believe that the U.S. and China have mutually decided to pause their incipient rivalry. This theory, while challenging the conventional wisdom, provides an interesting perspective on the evolving dynamics of U.S.-China relations under President Trump.