Arthur Kroeber

And it's a legitimately difficult problem.

And I think a lot of the problems have to do not with China, but with U.S.

domestic policy.

So I think a lot of what's going on right now is scapegoating of China and

as a way of diverting attention from decisions that need to be made domestically about income redistribution and macroeconomic policy and so forth.

But there is also I think a legitimate question to be made about China now accounts for 20% of the global economy, probably will be larger in future, a third of the global manufacturing economy.

There has to be an agreed set of rules about how it interacts with the rest of the world so that everyone feels that they are benefiting, not just in financial terms.

And we don't really have that agreement now.

Yeah, well, there's a few different questions in there.

So let me break that down.

So first, I think the first thing that you alluded to there is

Essentially, is a Cold War the right framing for whatever this conflict is that we have with China?

And my answer to that is absolutely not.

And you can address that question both empirically and conceptually.

So empirically...

If you just look at patterns of trade and investment during the Cold War, the actual Cold War with Russia, the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union never accounted for more than about 1% of U.S.

trade and investment flows were basically non-existent.

China at its peak about 10 years ago accounted for 17% of U.S.

trade, which is about the same amount as Japan did in the late 80s and early 90s.

And that number has come down a little bit on the surface.