Clashes between China and the US at 164-member World Trade Organization (WTO) which the former joined in 2001 are not new but what happened at world’s trade body on last Tuesday ahead of fresh talks between the top two economies on averting a trade war can be plausibly described as “extraordinary” as both economic giants levelled accusations against each other. The WTO spokesman, for example, after a meeting of the body’s general council, has been quoted as saying: “What I would say about this meeting today is that it was extraordinary in intensity. We had perhaps the two most powerful members of the WTO weighing in with their views on each other’s policies in a way that I have not seen… in my many years of working here.” The situation was so grim that it drew the attention of both US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping with latter calling for a solution to their trade spate that is characterized by mutual threats: US has threatened tariffs targeting $150 billion in imports, while China has warned $50 billion are in the firing line. This ugly dispute has taken place days before Chinese economic wizard Vice Premier Liu He’s scheduled visit to Washington this week after he led talks in Beijing two weeks ago with a US team that made little or no headway in resolving the dispute.

According to media reports, China took the WTO floor to again condemn the US over its efforts to cripple the appellate division of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) as it has already blocked the appointment of any new judges to the WTO’s internal court. China has criticized the $150 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods proposed by President Trump. Its accusation that the US is inhibiting global trade derives strength from the principle of free global trade. In its turn the US, however, has made no powerful argument; it has only pointed fingers at China for their threats of retaliation. That the US argument lacks depth if not legitimacy is a fact that has found its best expression from the comparison that deputy US trade representative Dennis Shea tried to draw. According to him, the rhetoric employed by China is tantamount to the fictional, backward reality of Alice in Wonderland where “white is black. Up is down”. Shea was reported as saying: “The truth is, it is China that is the unilateralist, consistently acting in ways that undermine the global system of open and fair trade. The WTO must avoid falling down this rabbit hole into a fantasy world, lest it lose its credibility.”

Be that as it may, it is not known at this point in time who will be losing its credibility in relation to global trade; what is however quite known are some legitimate concerns voiced by no one but the director general of WTO Roberto Azeved over an open threat to the global economy as a result of US-China standoff as he has pointed out that a fully-fledged trade war between China and the US will have a “severe impact on the global economy”. According to him, there was a risk global growth could fall “very quickly”. Moreover, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have both warned that rising protectionism could cause harm to the strongest economic growth the world has seen in years. This is about time the two economic giants revisit their strategies in relation to each other without any further loss of time. Both the countries are also required to stop ramping up the rhetoric on trade. The US in particular is required to show strong appreciation to the reality that the Communist Party of China will cease to exist if it decides to withdraw subsidies to State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that still number in thousands despite China’s hybrid Marxist-Capitalist economic journey of nearly four decades. President Trump, therefore, must not continue to nurse ambitions of regime change in China with a view to transforming China into a Jeffersonian democracy. This can never happen in China. He may get better counsel from highly revered former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an undisputed authority on China, in this regard.