China Is Losing The Trade War In Nearly Every Way

Perhaps China's biggest “win” on the trade front is Vietnam’s membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership. For those who have forgotten, Vietnam is an authoritarian country run by Communist Party chief Nguyễn Phú Trọng. Vietnam has become an outpost of Chinese businesses, especially manufacturing and exporters looking for cheaper labor and less regulations. The trade deal is essentially the old TPP, which Trump killed upon entering the White House in 2017.

China is still the world’s No. 2 economy and is still the monster of emerging markets, but regardless of those bonafides, Xi Jinping’s country is losing the trade war in nearly every way imaginable.

The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada last month for breaking U.S. sanctions law, followed by the firing of Huawei sales executive Wang Weijing in Poland last week shows China can be a bad actor, exactly as Washington believes. The Poland story centers around spying allegations, where Wang allegedly sought trade secrets from the government. Huawei’s latest bad headlines show how China tech companies may have risen to prominence by copying foreign technologies in joint venture deals or through white-collar criminal actions such as intellectual property theft and corporate espionage. Huawei is one of China’s most important, private tech firms. It rivals Cisco Systems worldwide.

Thanks in part to Huawei, China is getting beat on the public relations front in the trade war.

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