Has China Already Won? By James Reed

 Michael B. G. Froman's thesis from the provided excerpt, titled "China Has Already Remade the International System: How the World Adopted Beijing's Economic Playbook,"

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/economics-china-international-system-tariffs-michael-froman

argues that China has already won! The core argument is that China has effectively reshaped the global economic order, not by conforming to the U.S.-led liberal, rules-based system, but by pulling the world—particularly the U.S.—toward its own model of nationalist state capitalism, characterised by protectionism, investment restrictions, subsidies, and industrial policy. Froman suggests that, rather than China becoming more like the U.S. through integration, the U.S. is adopting Chinese-style policies, signalling Beijing's victory in defining the international system's next phase. Here's my critique:

Froman's argument has some bite. The U.S.'s recent policy shifts—tariffs on steel and aluminium, investment screening for Chinese firms (e.g., via CFIUS), and Trump's push to bring manufacturing home—do echo tactics China's wielded for years. Beijing's playbook—high tariffs (e.g., 25 percent on U.S. cars pre-trade war), tight controls on foreign investment (e.g., joint-venture mandates), and massive subsidies (think Made in China 2025)—has long been criticised by Washington, yet here's the U.S. mirroring them. The 2018 steel tariffs (25 percent) and aluminium tariffs (10 percent) under Trump, or Biden's continuation of trade barriers, do suggest a retreat from the open-market gospel the U.S. once preached. China's economic rise—$18 trillion GDP by 2025 estimates, rivalling the U.S.—and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spreading state-led development globally, lend credence to the idea that Beijing's model is gaining traction.

The convergence angle is compelling too. If the U.S., the architect of post-WWII free trade, starts walling off its economy, it's fair to ask whether China's approach—state-driven, nationalist, less bound by multilateral rules—has indeed set the tone. Froman's point about China "defining the next phase" tracks with how developing nations (e.g., in Africa or Southeast Asia) increasingly emulate China's blend of control and growth over Western laissez-faire ideals.

But the thesis overreaches. Claiming China has "already won" and remade the system assumes too much finality and downplays the resilience of the U.S.-led order.

Froman paints U.S. tariffs and investment curbs as a wholesale adoption of China's model, but they're more tactical than systemic. Trump's steel tariffs, for instance, hit multiple countries (Canada, Mexico, EU), not just China, and were framed as national security moves under Section 232, not a long-term industrial policy like Beijing's. Biden's kept some tariffs but paired them with alliances (e.g., AUKUS, Quad) to counter China—hardly a sign of capitulating to its playbook. China's system is centrally planned; the U.S.'s actions are reactive, often chaotic, and still tethered to a private-sector-driven economy. Convergence? Maybe superficially. Victory? Not yet.

Froman says the U.S. living in "Beijing's world" misses how much of the global system still runs on American rails. The dollar dominates (60 percent of global reserves in 2025, per IMF trends), U.S. markets dwarf China's (S&P 500 market cap ~$40 trillion vs. Shanghai's ~$7 trillion), and institutions like the WTO—flawed but alive—reflect Western norms. China's BRI ($1 trillion+ invested) and state capitalism appeal to autocrats, but they're not universal—Europe's Green Deal and Japan's trade pacts (e.g., CPTPP) still lean liberal. Beijing's influence is growing, not dominant.

Froman overlooks the cracks in China's approach. Subsidies and protectionism fuelled growth (e.g., 6 percent GDP rise in the 2010s), but they've also bred inefficiency—state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are 30 percent less productive than private firms, per World Bank data. Debt's ballooned (300 percent of GDP by 2025 estimates), and Xi's controls alienate investors (e.g., tech crackdowns tanking stocks like Alibaba). The U.S. might mimic tariffs, but it's not copying China's stifling bureaucracy or demographic time bomb (aging population, shrinking workforce). If anything, China's "win" looks fragile—less a remade system, more a loud alternative.

The US isn't "behaving more like China" in any deep sense. China's policies serve a one-party state; America's, even under Trump, answer to voters and courts. Investment screening (e.g., blocking Huawei) isn't new—security trumps openness historically (Cold War export controls). Subsidies? The U.S. has them (e.g., CHIPS Act, $52 billion), but they're dwarfed by China's scale (hundreds of billions yearly). Froman's "Chinese policy with American characteristics" is catchy but thin—shared tools don't mean shared systems.

The thesis implies the U.S. passively slid into China's orbit, ignoring how these shifts are deliberate pushback. Tariffs and manufacturing drives aren't Beijing worship—they're attempts to kneecap China's rise. The U.S. isn't adopting China's playbook out of admiration but out of rivalry, aiming to reclaim leverage. If China's winning, why's Washington doubling down on containment (e.g., export bans on semiconductors)? Froman's narrative skips this dynamic—less convergence, more collision.

Froman's got a provocative thesis: China's rise flipped the script, and the U.S. is playing catch-up with protectionist tricks. There's truth in the optics—tariffs and "made in America" rhetoric do nod toward Beijing's style. But "China has already won" is too bold. The international system's a hybrid mess, not a Chinese monolith—U.S. power (military, financial, cultural) still looms large, and China's model, while seductive to some, isn't universally adopted or proven sustainable. The U.S. isn't living in Beijing's world; it's wrestling with it, borrowing a few moves while writing its own playbook.

The real shift might be less about China remaking the system and more about the system itself fraying—globalisation's retreat isn't China's victory but a shared disillusionment. Froman's thesis sparks debate, but it's premature to hand Beijing the crown. The game's still on, and the U.S., for all its stumbles, hasn't folded.

It is not over until the fat lady sings, and there are plenty of fat ladies in America!

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/economics-china-international-system-tariffs-michael-froman

"In early February, as he flew in Air Force One above the body of water he'd recently renamed the Gulf of America, President Donald Trump declared that he would levy tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum. Two weeks later, he issued a presidential memorandum laying out new guidance for screening investment from Chinese firms in the United States and U.S. firms into China. And throughout the early weeks of his administration, Trump has emphasized the importance of bringing manufacturing back home, telling firms that, to avoid tariffs, they should make their products in the United States.

Tariffs and protectionism, restrictions on investment, measures designed to drive domestic production: Washington's economic policy suddenly looks an awful lot like Beijing's policies over the last decade or so—like Chinese policy with American characteristics.

The U.S. strategy of engagement with China was based on the premise that, if the United States incorporated China into the global rules-based system, China would become more like the United States. For decades, Washington lectured Beijing about avoiding protectionism, eliminating barriers to foreign investment, and disciplining the use of subsidies and industrial policy—with only modest success. Still, the expectation was that integration would facilitate convergence.

There has indeed been a fair degree of convergence—just not in the way American policymakers predicted. Instead of China coming to resemble the United States, the United States is behaving more like China. Washington may have forged the open, liberal rules-based order, but China has defined its next phase: protectionism, subsidization, restrictions on foreign investment, and industrial policy. To argue that the United States must reassert its leadership to preserve the rules-based system it established is to miss the point. China's nationalist state capitalism now dominates the international economic order. Washington is already living in Beijing's world."