Chinese check: On the détente in the U.S.

While there may be much relief after the détente in the tariff war between China and the U.S., in Busan, South Korea, following the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping , the uneasy truce has laid bare a structural inversion of power between the two economies. What began in the 1980s as a reluctant embrace of World Bank/IMF-prescribed neoliberal reforms by an overwhelmingly agrarian China, has now evolved into an unimaginable assertion of industrial dominance. A nation that once bartered sovereignty for technology transfer and market access has, through patient accumulation of manufacturing depth, labour arbitrage, and global supply-chain integration, positioned itself as the indispensable node of world production. The irony is sharp. The U