On March 29 and March 30, 2019, the delegation met with a diverse group of local industry leaders, businesses, economic development organizations, academics, and civic and community leaders, including WSCRC members Global Innovation Exchange and Boeing, to discuss the impacts of the ongoing trade war on Washington state.
The delegates came away with a positive impression of Washington state and its commercial and cultural linkages with China. Delegates were grateful for the chance to see and hear about a far less fractious relationship than what often comes out of the “other” Washington. While the ongoing trade dispute has fomented a large amount of negative attention, businesses and civic leaders in Washington are committed to a strong and robust relationship with China. Washington state businesses and governments and view this relationship as critical to the state’s long-term economic success.
On March 14, 2019, Ambassador Craig Allen, President of the US-China Business Council and a former commercial diplomat to China, guided a lively interactive discussion on the current state and the future of the U.S.-China trade relations. He shared his expert insights on where the bilateral relationship is headed, including the dynamics at play in the ongoing negotiations, what to expect from the potential meeting between the two leaders in late-March, as well as the potential impact of reforms to export controls and investment restrictions to companies in the high-tech space. Amb. Allen argued that the current trade war would very likely morph into a technology war.
On January 23, 2019, Dr. Nicholas Lardy, the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a renowned expert on the Chinese economy, presented to a large crowd at the Dorsey and Whitney about his new book, The State Strikes Back: the End of the Economic Reform. Dr. Lardy argued that China’s recent slowing economic growth is not the result of the natural maturing of an economy, but rather may reflect the diminished pace of economic form and the resurgence of the state in resource allocation since President Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012. His talk highlighted numerous examples of the growing tilt towards the state sector, such as the delinking of credit allocation with differences between state and private sector firm rates of return on assets and the impacts of enterprise subsidies.