China and the US are on a slow but sure collision course

I recently attended the China Development Forum in Beijing, an annual gathering of senior foreign business leaders, academics, former policymakers and top Chinese officials. This year’s conference was the first to be held in person since 2019, and it offered Western observers an opportunity to meet China’s new senior leadership, including new Premier Li Qiang. Li’s joke included an implicit warning that although US firms are still welcome in China, the Chinese government can play hardball if its firms and interests are treated harshly in the United States. The run-up to the US presidential election, together with China’s suspicion that the US is trying to contain its economic growth, will impede efforts to build trust and de-escalate tensions between the two countries. Despite US officials’ efforts to establish guard-rails for strategic competition with China and Chinese officials’ insistence that they have no interest in economic decoupling, prospects for cooperation look remote.