China/USA Trade Wars

At present, the two emerging super powers are far too away from the way of calmness and peace. China and the United States have begun with a severe issue of trade, leading to the decrease of trade among the American and the Asian continents.

Both countries are engaged in a trade war as each nation continues to dispute tariffs placed on goods traded between them. The economic disputes occured before China's entry in the World Trade Organization. The US President Donald Trump had promised in his campaign to fix China's ‛longtime abuse of the broken international system and unfair practices’. In April 2018, the US filed a request for consultation to the World Trade Organization, in regard to the concerns that China was violating the intellectual property rights.

On adding various tariffs, the US administration is relying partly on the Section 301, of the Trade Act of 1974, to prevent what it calls unfair trade practices and theft of intellectual property. In August 2017, US had opened formal investigation in regards to the intellectual property issues and its allies, which costed an estimateof 500 billion in year of losses.

This results that the US believes that Chinese laws undermine the intellectual property rights by forcing foreign companies to engage in joint ventures with Chinese companies. This concluded to a drastic downfall within the imports and exports of the respected countries. The lack of any specifics from the meeting, shows how difficult it is for Washington and Beijing to resolve the most complex issues between them: the intellectual property, technology transfer and market access, along with Beijing's high-tech industrial aspirations.

But American lawmakers point out to how China's judiciary is under the Communist party, and legal decisions go the way the party wants them to go, in particular when the state owned enterprise is involved. But make no mistake - even if they come over to an agreement, the strategic competition between these two countries is here to stay.

Without  fundamentally changing the structure of China's economy, the two countries won't bridge their differences on these particular issues.


Maitreyee R.
F.Y.B.Com