The dispute between the United States and China...
...is about much more than trade
For everything from blockbuster films...
...to lunar exploration...
...from semiconductors to submarines
In every domain, they’re now rivals
Superpower relations have soured
America thinks that China is stealing secrets...
...stealing its way to dominance
And then it looks at Chinese behaviour in the South China sea...
...and bullying countries like Canada and Sweden...
...and it thinks that China’s beginning to challenge global norms
But it looks very different from Beijing
From its point of view...
...America is trying to block its entirely justified rise
For everyone else it seems like the beginnings of a new kind of cold war
A cold war that everybody could lose
Of course America has fought a cold war before with the Soviet Union...
...and it won
So why not just do the same thing again and cut China off?
Isolate it economically
Well it’s a bit more complicated than that
In the late 1980s the United States and the Soviet Union...
...did about $2bn-worth of trade a year
Today China and the United States do $2bn-worth of trade a day
And then there are the allies who helped America...
...in the first cold war with the Soviet Union
Well they do a lot of business with China...
...they want to be able to trade with it
It would cost them a lot to stop...
...so to persuade them that they must choose security...
...over their own prosperity...
...would be very hard indeed
The first thing is that the United States...
...needs to build on its strengths
These are often institutions and alliances...
...the institutions that the United States built after the second world war
The second thing the United States needs to do...
...is to shore up its defences
And that means defending itself militarily...
...through cyber and space...
...but also defending its technology
But the third thing is that the United States and China...
...need to learn how to live together...
...in a low-trust world
China and America don’t have to agree about everything...
...in order to agree that they should live by some global norms
So you need to find ways to build trust
Over North Korea say...
...over rules for cyberwar or space war
China is challenging America in every domain
Business and a profit motive are no longer enough...
...to keep this relationship together
What the relationship desperately needs...
...is the building of trust and the building of rules
Unfortunately just now both sides see rules as something to break