While collecting materials to offer a retort to arguments favoring robust U.S. industrial policy, I came across an article I wrote on the subject published in China‑U.S. Focus on March 15, 2011. I am struck by how much of that piece is still relevant to today’s debate. The article also notes that perceptions developed during the Great Recession (particularly among U.S. policymakers) were the catalyst for the steady decline in the U.S.-China relationship during the Obama administration, which accelerated with rise of Xi Jinping and the election of Donald Trump (a chronology covered in more detail in this analysis).
While I still plan to write a fresh rebuttal to the more recent arguments for industrial policy, for the time being, the original is republished in full below.
Read the rest of this post →