ABSTRACT
We locate the ongoing trade disputes between the United States and China in the long-term cyclic changes of global capitalism. During the past three decades, the US–China economies reached mutually complementary structures, which provides the key foundation for the stability of global capitalism. However, recent structural changes, including intensifying financialisation, have shifted such a balance. The ‘twin-surplus’ of China and ‘twin-deficit’ for US, representing the fundamental structural features of global capitalism up until 2008, is now under increasing pressure for significant rebalancing. The two major countries are actually converging on multiple fronts, bringing the bilateral relations to a new level of competing for the same ‘ecological niche’. These changes are reflected directly in the ongoing trade war between the two countries since 2018 and further intensification is inevitable.
