Trend US-China rivalry hardens into a prolonged structural clash of national strategies

Summary

The report reads the conflict as a collision between the America First drive to realise MAGA under Trump's second term and Xi Jinping's pursuit of the China Dream through Chinese-style modernisation. Because both goals are long-range national strategies, it judges that the dispute will persist rather than fade. Disputes over economic systems, trade imbalances, intellectual property and competing visions of the world economic order are described as a structural clash rather than a passing trade quarrel. Citing Baldwin and other analysts, the authors argue that a system clash between market-led and state-led capitalism cannot be won outright, so deadlock is more likely than a grand bargain. Korea is urged to treat this as a new normal and prepare for a long contest in which the world order itself is being reshaped.