I Summary
This trade war is necessary and its purpose is to reconfigure the global supply chain so that the US is no longer dependent on other nations to produce important technology such as satellites, solar panels, drones, and so forth.  China is doing the same (Made in China 2025 initiative). And it’s going to happen because automation will make outsourcing of manufacturing work unnecessary. What’s happening is as much a Tech Race as a Trade War, to see who can start the Fourth Industrial Revolution first. Whoever gets there first will likely become the dominant, if not sole, superpower.

II Background
Sometime in the 1980s, US government gave US steel industry tax breaks to update their operations so that they’d remain competitive with steel industries in emerging economies in East Asia.  US steel fucked it up by investing that money in oil instead of new technology and workflow processes because they wanted to maximize short-term profits instead of protect long-term American national interests. By 2000, China, South Korea, and Japan had state backed state-of-the-art steel producing facilities, while US steel, like its travel infrastructure today, was stuck in the 1940s and no longer competitive against steel companies in Germany and the Asian Tigers.

III   Jobs
This trade war has little to do with bringing jobs back. It’s about building a more secure global supply chain for the US, especially one that doesn’t depend on China for materials and resources that they can withhold from the US. Assuming manufacturing returns to the US, most the jobs will be had by robots because they’re cheaper and better than human labor.

IV War or Friendly Race?
This race is a war, tripping your opponent is fair. The US was conceived as an anti-colonial imperialist nation set to remake the world into its own image, that “city upon a hill.”  Sure, it set itself apart from its colonial master Great Britain by claiming and trying (with some success) to be anti-colonial but its national purpose was and continues to be imperialistic — to spread Western democracy throughout the world because that’s what they believe is best for the everyone. A cultural expression of this attitude is found in a popular American life rule:

Treat others as you want to be treated

This life rule is popular in the US because most Americans are too narcissistic to realize that other people may be different from them and may not want to be treated as most Americans want to be treated.  Many such Americans fly into narcissistic rage when they learn that people reject their “benevolence,” (eg. Western democracy). This rage is dangerous and is hidden behind fake smiles and polite words.

China is comparably dangerous, but for different reasons. China has no interest in spreading its political, cultural, and social values and institutions, it only wants to do business with everyone. However, it calls itself the “Middle Kingdom,” where all other nation-states (“barbarians”) are vassals to China.  And for most of the past 3000 years, China really has been the “Middle-Kingdom.”  China’s share of the world GDP in 1000 AD was 50 percent.  In 1700, as Western Europe was rising fast economically, China still accounted for 35 percent of the world GDP. China (and economist Ander Gunder Frank in his 1998 book ReOrient) believes that Western ascendance and China’s decline is an aberration in history and that China will soon return to its rightful place in the world.

Put simply, the US wants China to become like the US.  China wants the US to recognize China as a world leader. US won’t do so until China becomes like the US. China refuses to do so, and the US refuses to risk becoming a vassal state to China. War is inevitable and already happening.

V Globalism versus Nationalism as Another Way to Frame This War

Democracy in China means government FOR Chinese people, NOT by the people.  Democracy in the US, in contrast, means government BY the people.  Which means globalism is more likely to take root in the US than in China because it’s easier for corporations to buy their way into US government — “corporatism” American nationalists call it — than into Chinese government, which acts to check the power of native and foreign corporations. That explains why US policy is often geared more toward expanding the global influence of corporations than improving the lives of ordinary American citizens. Globalism’s neglect of these citizens led to Trump’s 2016 victory, which was a revolt against globalism.

Here’s a way to think about globalism and nationalism in action: professional sports teams in economically nationalist nations such as China, South Korea, and Japan limit the number of foreigners on a team.  No such limits in American professional sports, American athletes compete against the world for a roster spot.

Similarly, Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese corporations are expected by their respective governments to protect their workers from foreign competition, and in return, these corporations expect their respective governments to protect them from foreign competition. American workers, on the other hand, can lose their jobs anytime to someone in another country who can do that job more efficiently and at a lower cost because American and foreign corporations aren’t obligated by the US government to protect American jobs and their primary goal is to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders.

It’s not that China is against globalization, China has developed global Chinese brands such as Huawei and has extended its economic influence throughout the world, especially in Africa. But Chinese government exercises control over private Chinese corporations that’s not possible in the US, even as Trump administration tries to do so.

VI What China Thinks of US

Before Xi Jinping became president of China, he said this at a meeting in Mexico:

There are some well fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs. China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you. What more does there need to be said?

More recently, a new Chinese word for White Liberals — “baizuo” — elucidates what political minded Chinese think of Sino-US relations.  From Urban Dictionary:

Baizuo (pronounced “bye-tswaw) is a Chinese epithet meaning naive western educated person who advocates for peace and equality only to satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority. A baizuo only cares about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment while being obsessed with political correctness to the extent that they import backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.

The Chinese see the baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.

Justin Trudeau’s worldview is a low-resolution caricature of an adult’s worldview.

“Oh yeah. He’s a total BAIZUO.”

It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.

• Spreading false rumors that People’s Liberation Army, at the behest of Chinese government, massacred thousands of students at Tiananmen Square in 1989
• Bombing Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 1999, which resulted in deaths of three Chinese journalists and injuries to 27 others. (Embassy was protecting a wanted Serb leader)
• Routinely sending reconnaissance aircraft to monitor China’s coastline, which resulted in an air accident that killed a Chinese pilot, 2001
• Encouraging Uighur Muslim leaders to riot in Urumqi which resulted in 2009 the deadliest riot in China since the Beijing riots of 1989
• Arrest of Huawei executive in Canada, 2019

The document is reportedly released by the country’s media regulator and includes the following rules：avoid discussing national affairs, such as China’s political system and the current state and future of the country; don’t brag about China’s armed forces and don’t portray western countries as opposing forces.