As the presidents of the United States and China prepare to meet on the sidelines of an economic summit in South Korea — some foreign-policy strategists in Washington are not just worried but aghast. The two mightiest nations on Earth seem hell-bent on waging economic war up to and including "mutual assured destruction.” And at least one of the pair seems to have no plan, no expertise and no clue.
"The first thing to understand is that there is no China policy” in the current U.S. administration, Rebecca Lissner told me. She was a top adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and would now be in the National Security Council if Harris had won the 2024 election.
The Trump administration has no coherent strategy toward China and the "trade stuff is worse than the markets believe,” I heard from Zack Cooper, a veteran Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute. That must be bad indeed, because the stock markets have been see-sawing since April. One of his colleagues despairs over "nine months of policy whiplash” and a chronic case of "strategic schizophrenia.”
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