Why was the National Security Strategy Report so hostile to China?

The US National Security Strategy was very revealing.

Ant Financial’s plan to acquire U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc (MGI.O) collapsed on Tuesday after a U.S. government panel rejected it over national security concerns.

Trump’s National Security Strategy turns up the dial on his predecessors’ bellicosity.

Trump’s national security strategy can lead to dangers, but also presents opportunities for Sino-American cooperation.

The U.S. National Security Strategy released on December 18 is extremely critical of China but does not invariably portend a more confrontational policy. Sino-American relations are very much in flux. In the coming year, Beijing and Washington can take actions to redirect the relationship towards a more positive trajectory.

US Cold War mentality and zero-sum game logic are fundamentally impeding the expansion of cooperation between the two armed forces. China’s innovation and development of military equipment should not be taken as a stimulus for competition. In fact they have provided the two armed forces with new opportunities for brand-new cooperation.

While the annual US Defense Department report interestingly reflects some strong domestic resistance against military exchanges between the two countries, it is mostly a rehash of previous reports, seemingly put together in a hurry by an over-tasked Pentagon.

Affirmative findings would give the president statutory authority to raise import barriers to protect domestic sources. But invoking national security to justify protectionism is an extreme measure—the “nuclear option” of international trade law—that would generate some undesirable consequences for U.S.-China relations, as well as for the rules-based trading system itself.