US President Trump is due to visit China in May, offering a brief respite in a testy relationship that has seen both cooperation and conflict. While Trump is set to receive a warm welcome from Chinese President Xi, the US will likely regard issues with China more as competition with increasing risk than as areas for cooperation. The high-stakes bilateral relationship could mark a temporary truce as a tactical breathing space, rather than a strategic breakthrough. It would also likely be part of an international strategy to avoid a direct strategic confrontation with China.

The agenda will be economic in nature, following years of sharp increases in tariffs and a massive reorganisation of global supply chains. Trump will likely press for lower tariffs and greater market access to foreign markets for U.S. farmers, workers and companies, while China will seek assurances that there will be no renewed protectionism that could harm its exports as its economy slowly contracts. While the two sides have reduced their exposure to each other’s verbal broadsides, they are taking a cautious approach, and any temporary reductions in some tariffs are unlikely to resolve fundamental disagreements over issues such as intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and curbs on cloud computing and other digital services. With neither side seemingly willing or able to make meaningful concessions towards a two-state solution, in the face of domestic political pressure and mistrust, the prospects for meaningful negotiations appear dim.

Tariff reduction agreements need commitment. They need to be linked to clear targets, timetables and penalties for non-compliance. Without these, tariff agreements are simply empty press releases and campaign sound bites for politicians to repeat while they work to delay necessary trade policies that include rules, reciprocity and enforcement.

Three more sectors where technology is used as an instrument of national power are semiconductors, artificial intelligence and renewable energy. The U.S. concerns over semiconductor supply chains originating from China are........

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