China Herald: Trump missed 10 years of change in China

Shaun Rein

President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will get American jobs back from China, and named China a currency manipulator. But jobs have already moved away from China, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The End of Cheap China, in the International Business Times, and he has missed 10 years of change in China.

International Business Times:

Trump famously accused China of "raping our country". However, in an editorial a day after the election, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua said: "Election talk is just election talk".

Meanwhile, on the street, Chinese perceptions of Trump are broadly positive: "Many in China see him as a strongman. They like him in the same way they like Putin or Duterte," said Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group (CMR).

Reuters reported that "Trump has won" was the most searched term on Chinese internet portal Weibo on Wednesday afternoon in Asia, well before the race was called for the billionaire.

As for his potential anti-China economic policies, Trump's allegations about cheap Chinese products impacting the US economy is something of a red herring, according to Rein. Chinese manufacturing has moved beyond the low-end products that would be impacted by tariffs and are now made in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia. "Trump is criticising a China from ten years ago," he said.

More in the International Business Times.

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