Companies and governments need a better mutual understanding of how they view each other’s approach towards China.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington, D.C., October 27, 2023. Credit: Jake Sullivan via X, formerly known as Twitter
In May this year in Hiroshima, G-7 leaders agreed that “de-risking not decoupling” should be the basis for its member countries’ economic resilience and security when it comes to China. Yet one month later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz strikingly declared that “de-risking…is mainly about decisions that need to be taken by companies.”
By eliding the critical role governments play in shaping the context for corporate decisions, Scholz’s words highlight a deeper truth. De-risking is about economic activity and economic relations. And in the G-7’s free-market economies, it is companies and individuals, not governments, that make most of the day-to-day decisions. Only in the most tightly defined circumstances should this change in the name of de-risking, because governments are ill-equipped to mandate, implement or finance wholesale adjustments in business operations. Success for Western countries will not come from aping the strongly interventionist, government-dr
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