US vs China: a zero-sum game?

Zero-sum game?

Globalisation and international trade have for many decades delivered huge benefits to both nations and to the wider world and imposing obstacles to trade threatens to undermine those.

'Strategic competition between the US and China seems inevitable, but it does not have to be a zero-sum game,' Mr Goh said. 'Nor should it close off opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation.'

Mr Lew dismissed the idea that conflict between an incumbent and a rising superpower was inevitable. 'The whole idea of the Thucydides Trap being inevitable is abandoning leadership. It's up to leaders on both sides to make that kind of self-fulfilling prophecy not become real and not lead to conflict.'

The G20 summit at the end of June is being touted as the last, best chance to prevent an all-out trade war. While Mr Goh believes a meeting between the two leaders 'cannot restore trust or resolve fundamental differences immediately,' he hopes that voices of moderation, led by those caught between the two 'fighting elephants', could help the US and China see the benefits of cooperation and consider the larger interests of the world.

'This moderate voice is… a voice for peace and stability, growth and prosperity, and an interdependent rule-based multinational order that is not reliant on the benevolence of superpowers.'

It is a voice that the whole world is hoping the US and China listen to.