Economic and Political Studies | 2019
Editorial
Abstract
The Sino-US trade war reflects the long-standing conflicts between the two countries over economic ideology. Specifically, the US and China have historically been different in their approaches toward development. The opening up of China in 1978 incorporated trade into its development policy. Accusations by the US against China’s ill practices associated with trade and currency have been incessant since the 1990s. The daunting trade deficit in goods is at the heart of the surfacing trade war. In an attempt to redress the trade imbalance, the US waged a trade war on 200 billion US dollars’ worth of Chinese goods. This course of action in turn has repercussions for world trade. Through a scale-up in prices of foreign goods in the home country, trade diversion and distortions in global value chains, the impact of a trade war on global trade is enormous and far-reaching. The world economy is grappling with uncertainties detrimental to its long-term prospects. The 2018 Sino-US trade war has received worldwide attention due to its huge scale and impact on other countries. Many speculations about the reasons for as well as the development and implications of the trade war have emerged. Therefore, understanding the underlying forces at play allows us to predict how the trade war will evolve and to evaluate its economic consequences, which are important for investors and policymakers to make judicious decisions. It is against this backdrop that Economic and Political Studies (EPS) publishes this special issue to discuss the causes and the consequences of this trade war. This special issue provides a good opportunity for readers to better understand the real situation of the Sino-US trade war. It also offers Chinese authorities valuable insights from international scholars to deal with the recent trade conflict between China and the US. As an introduction to the special issue, the objectives are as follows. First, this editorial note aims to contextualise this collection by reviewing the causes and the predicted consequences of the Sino-US trade war. Second, I associate the main themes and arguments of the papers presented in this collection and summarise the main points of their contributions. Third, I analyse how the current trade war is affecting the US economy. Fourth, since the Hong Kong SAR is a re-export hub for China’s products, I also examine how Hong Kong is affected by this trade war. In the concluding remarks, I will discuss the implications of the contributions of this special issue for wider debates and provide possible policy recommendations for policymakers.