Historical and Strategic Concern over the US-China Trade War: Will They Be within the WTO?

• Author: Nany Hur
• Position: Senior Research Fellow of Lee & Ko Global Commerce Institute, Korea; Lecturer of Korea University School of Law. A.B./Ph.D. (Korea Univ.), LL.M. (UPenn)
• Pages: 393-394

Will They Be within the WTO? 393

XI JEAIL 2 (2018)

Nany Hur

∗

The trade war between the US and China in the Trump era has become a momentous

event in the world economy. It is necessary to see how trade relations between them

have played out within the WTO from a historical perspective. Since the Opium Wars,

both economic and political concerns have changed the relationship between these two

countries. The escalation from a trade conict to trade war shows the rivalry between

the US and China for hegemony in the twenty-first century’s regional and world

politics. The economic, technological, and manufacturing competition that is a part of

hegemonic rivalry is not totally new; this is borne out by the history of the US-China

economic relations. The escalation of this ‘trade war’ now has spill-over effects on other

countries, being beyond the normative framework of the WTO. There is an impasse

in this ongoing saga, but the silver lining is that there will be a re-construction of the

multilateral trading system.

Keywords

US-China Trade War, US-China Trade Relations, Trump Administration,

WTO

∗ Senior Research Fellow of Lee & Ko Global Commerce Institute, Korea; Lecturer of Korea University School of Law.

A.B./ Ph.D. (Korea Univ.), LL.M. (UPenn). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9125-2147. The author would like

to appreciate the devoted instructions from Professor Asif Qureshi, whose valuable contribution has improved the

depth and solidity of this article. The author may be contacted at: nanyhur@hanmail.net/ Address: 17th Floor, Hanjin

Building 63 Namdaemun-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04532 Korea.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2018.11.2.07

Historical and Strategic

Concern over the US-China

Trade War: Will They Be

within the WTO?

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