Future of U.S-China Bilateral Relations

International Policy
Making

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
DRIVERS...................................................................................................................................................4
SCENARIO................................................................................................................................................6
POLICY RECOMMENDATION..........................................................................................................10
EARLY WARNING INDICATORS......................................................................................................11
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
What is the future of the U.S-China bilateral relation?
The relationship between the U.S and China is one of the central topic for international
relations in the twenty-first century, and how this relationship will develop over the next 15 years
is highly uncertain. Therefore, this briefing addresses the potential future of the relations
between those dominant nations. The paper is purposed for the audience of the federal
government of the United States of America.
Security, economics, and cultural-educational ties of the US-China for the last four
decades have been broken recently by political trends and the leaders of both countries (Lampton
2019, p 43). China’s outstanding growth has unsurprisingly had a huge impact on the position of
global power from which the United States has since 1945 been leading the liberal world order
(De Gaaff et al 2018, p.123). Especially, the US started to engage in collaboration with China in
economic and cultural field since 1970s regardless of their difference in political ideology. The
current US government has decided to change its strategic tactic against China, possibly because
of the Chinese government is not opening up towards liberalism, and to protect the US economy
from over dependency. Recent worsened relation of those giant nations is clearly expressed by
the widely-discussed “Trade War”. In 2018, the Trump administration imposed import tariffs on
approximately $283 billion of Chinese exports, with rates ranging between 10% and 50%. In
response, China has imposed tariffs in an average of 16% on about $121 billion of US exports,
dropping the U.S into its first episode of large-scale competitive tariff protection since the Great
Depression of the 1930s, and raising questions about the future of international trade integration
(Amiti et al 2019). This year, the trade tension has intensified, and the expected China-US trade
negotiation broke down since May 2019. The US government was goaded into launching an all-
out war on private tech companies like Huawei (Yong 2019, p. 8). According to data of the
Office of the United States Trade representative, China is the USA’s largest goods trading
partner with $659.8 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2018. The U.S. goods and
services trade with China totaled an estimated $737.1 billion in 2018. Exports were $179.3
billion; imports were $557.9 billion. The U.S top import categories from China in 2018 were:
electrical machinery, machinery, furniture and bedding, toys and sports equipment, and plastics.
The top export categories in 2018 were: aircraft, machinery, electrical machinery, optical and

medical instruments, and vehicles (USTR 2019). Moreover, the U.S has exerted growing
pressure on China on almost all of the issues that are vital to Chinese interests. These include the
South China Sea, Taiwan, Xinjiang, the exchange of education management, visas and
investment in the US (Yong 2019, p. 8). In terms of military build-up, China has seen an
estimated increase in defense spending from about US$10 billion in 1991 to US$215 billion in
2016 and now ranks second in the world (De Graaff et al 2018, p. 119).
DRIVERS
Driver 1: Balance of hard power (economy and military) between the US and China
The balance of hard power that is economic and military power can act as driver. This is
because both are having a supreme economic growth and military power. So, till 2035 the gap
between hard power may reduce. It is due to that Chinese economic growth can increase. Besides
it, the military base of US can also grow at high rate. Thus, both US and China growth may be
similar. Through it, gap may get narrow. There will be a high impact of hard power between US
and china. This is because both countries ae highly competing against each other to become
super power. Due to this there might be change in economic growth of both nations (Eckhard
and Ege, 2016). There can be high imbalance in hard power. So, this may enforce to reduce
gap.
But after 15 years, it might happen that gap in hard power may change rapidly. This is
because in future china economic growth rate may be more than US. It might be due to that US
technology is transferred, educated people, large number of companies, etc. So, these all can
boost economic speed at higher rate. So, it is possible that China economy can be more than US.
Therefore, the gap may increase to a great extent. Likewise, in military power as well China may
exceed than US. It can lead to breaking of alliance between them. Alongside, US may end trade
relation with China. Thus, it can give more power to China to dominate world economy. This
change will highly impact on US economy. The military power can be affected as compared to
china.