Imagine there are two types of policymakers in the world: those who are looking to increase the size of the global economic pie and those who are focused on fighting for their own share of it.
For most of the past few decades, pie-expanding economists were the major force pushing reforms in China and shaping US-China relations. That’s no longer the case. China’s recent Communist Party Congress saw a generation of pro-market officials pushed out—and a former president who gave them room to operate literally ushered offstage. In the US, meanwhile, it’s now pie-protecting national security hawks calling the shots. For China’s development, and for relations between the world’s two largest economies, these shifts have profound consequences.
