To fly from New York to Beijing, as I did this week, is to enter a looking-glass world. Eight o’clock in the morning becomes the same time in the evening. One transfers from a country aggrieved at China to one aggrieved at the US.
The latest cause of tension is the dispute about rare earths filed at the World Trade Organisation by the US, Japan and the EU. The US president insisted with a flourish that China should not be “allowed to break the rules” by imposing quotas on the export of such minerals.
The case is a sideshow to the big challenge facing China – to shift from being the low-wage producer of manufactured goods to a developed economy with a vibrant, open consumer market. But it shows how the credibility it gained from its “Made in China” policy over the past three decades has expired.