Whether US, EU or India, decoupling from the world’s second biggest economy is near impossible. De-risking is the new buzzword. But even that’s not easy
Is it divorce or just separation, or an affair gone wrong? The United States is sending mixed signals on its relations with China. On April 20, Janet Yellen, the US secretary of treasury, ended a long list of complaints, warnings and threats aimed at China with a conciliatory message. She was quoted in the media as saying, “The US will assert ourselves when our vital interests are at stake. But we do not seek to ‘decouple’ our economy from China’s. A full separation of our economies would be disastrous for both countries. It would be destabilising for the rest of the world.”
The messaging shift
Her message, said in passing, was quickly reiterated and imparted gravitas by the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In a lecture delivered a week later, on April 27, at the influential Washington DC think tank, Brookings Institution, Sullivan ended a long and substantial address on US economic strategy aimed at reviving and revitalising the US economy, re-asserting US global economic leadership, and so on, with the categorical statement: “We are for de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling” from China.
The messaging shift
Her message, said in passing, was quickly reiterated and imparted gravitas by the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In a lecture delivered a week later, on April 27, at the influential Washington DC think tank, Brookings Institution, Sullivan ended a long and substantial address on US economic strategy aimed at reviving and revitalising the US economy, re-asserting US global economic leadership, and so on, with the categorical statement: “We are for de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling” from China.