Defusing the US-China trade conflict

DAVIS: Every year since 2000, when then-presidential candidate George W. Bush called China a strategic “competitor” of the United States, I have welcomed the arrival of Christmas with a sigh of relief that a Sino-American trade war was averted for another 12 months.

But by January, my holiday cheer is usually replaced with dread because the tensions fuelling Bush’s rhetoric – and the reasons he dismissed Bill Clinton’s preferred label of “partner” – have never adequately been addressed. And, as we are seeing now, the risks to the global economy have only grown more ominous in the years since.