In early 2019, a new term in the President Trump’s trade war with China caught my attention: “enforcement measures”. When the Phase One trade deal was announced on Jan 15, 2020 while the COVID-19 pandemic was blooming in Wuhan, it appeared again:
As part of the deal China has made “enforceable commitments to refrain from competitive devaluation” and agreed to publish relevant data on exchange rates and external balances, the U.S. Treasury said Monday.
Actually, the White House has put out the Fact Sheets on Dec 13, 2019 and indicated that
- The agreement includes a strong dispute resolution system to ensure effective implementation and enforcement.
- As a result, we will be able to ensure full enforcement of this phase one agreement and the reforms it includes.
It seems the Americans are finally waking up to the reality. And my next thought was, who was behind it? A single person or think tank? Then last month I came up on Miles Yu on Washington Times. Dr. Yu was born in Anhui in 1963 and grew up in Chongqing. He got into Nankai University in Tianjin in 1979. (So, he started college when he was 16? Not very likely.) Inspired by President Ronald Reagan, he came to the US in 1985. After Swarthmore College, he obtained his PhD from Berkeley in 1994, and began to teach at Naval Academy. He’s now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s principal China policy and planning adviser.
Is he the hand behind the enforcement wake up call, or Steve Bannon?
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