Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

42 страница из 137

Second, the Cold War was characterised to a great extent by strategic disengagement between the two principal protagonists, as both worked in parallel to demonstrate the superiority of their respective economic models. Since there was virtually no economic relationship to begin with, there was little to lose. In contrast, given the high level of economic interdependence between China and America today, disengagement – or ‘decoupling’, as some would have it – would be highly damaging to both nations’ prosperity. That is even if complete disengagement were actually possible. Globalisation has interwoven and integrated economies and supply chains around the world to an extent that would make a decoupling between China and the US not only economically damaging but also quite likely to lead to a cascading set of conflicts with other countries. Australia, against which America runs balance of payments surpluses, can afford to pay for US imports due, in large part, to the surpluses it runs versus China.ssss1 Ironically, therefore, Sino-US disengagement could compound existing economic stresses and elevate the risk of hostilities ratcheting up.