China-US trade war

China-Japan relations have never been better in recent years. Chinese commentators have praised Japan’s elegant gestures like sending medical supplies signed off with ancient verses such as “山川异域，风月同天” (roughly: different lands, same sky). China-Japan watchers say this bodes well ahead of President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Japan in April. But whether this goodwill will last, is quite another matter.

Mie Oba, Professor, Tokyo University of Science, suggests that rather than just being the grass that suffers when elephants fight, ASEAN’s approach and response to moves by the US and China will determine its future.

US-based expert Wei Da says the recently concluded phase one trade agreement shows that China may have ended up being called to heel by the US. Faced with a list of demands that it needs to fulfil, China should be reminded that its giant market is not everything. It will need to make fundamental improvements before it dares to believe that it is soon catching up to the US.

Yu Zeyuan says it would be quite wrong to think that China stands on the losing end of the recently concluded phase one Economic and Trade Agreement between the US and China. The picture may be quite the opposite.

Chinese observer Zhang Jingwei says China held its own in sealing phase one of the US-China trade deal. But this is just a prelude to the second act as the US heads further into its election year.

Prof Zheng Yongnian bemoans the “culturally-bereft” middle class in China, and labels them the “hooligan middle class”. He opines that the absence of a cultural middle class is the reason why China lacks originality in technology and innovation, why the intellectual community produces little useful knowledge, and why China has not been able to advance towards qualitative economic growth. He offers the solution.

An online survey by the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute shows that Southeast Asian opinion leaders are split down the middle when it comes to strategic alignment with the US or China. But who says it has to be one or the other? With US involvement in the region on a lower ebb and wariness of China on the rise, players such as Japan and the EU are increasingly looked upon as attractive and reliable alternatives.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew may have passed on, but his views survive. What might he have thought about the current China-US trade war? Zhu Ying looks at Mr Lee’s comments about China and the US for some clues.

Political scientist Zhu Zhiqun assesses that the East Asian security outlook for 2020 is not very promising, given that overall security in the region has deteriorated on several fronts over the past year. He gives his take on key hotspots in the region — the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait — and sums up major powers’ priorities in the region.