, Columnist
Biden Will Find That Breaking Up With China Is Hard to Do
The administration wants to decouple in a targeted way, but these things tend to spiral out of control.
Risky.
Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg
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The essential challenge of America’s economic relationship with China is to reap the rewards of interdependence while limiting the vulnerabilities. After more than two years, President Joe Biden’s strategy is finally taking shape.
Biden’s team envisions a precise, limited decoupling, one that protects US interests and values in key areas, while keeping the larger economic bonds mostly intact. That strategy is a bid to grapple with the complexity of an essential yet increasingly adversarial relationship. But the reality is that Sino-American decoupling will not be a tidy, carefully calibrated affair.