How America is failing to break up with China

WHEN IT COMES to tracing the geography of global supply chains, few companies provide a better map than , the world’s largest contract manufacturer. This year the Taiwanese giant has built or expanded factories in India, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam. The Chinese production sites once loved by Western companies are firmly out of fashion. Souring relations between the governments in Washington and Beijing have made businesses increasingly fretful about geopolitical risks. As a consequence, in the first half of the year, America traded more with Mexico and Canada than it did with China for the first time in almost two decades. The map of global trade is being redrawn.At first glance, this is almost exactly as desired by America’s policymakers. Under first Donald Trump and then Joe Biden, officials have put in place an array of tariffs, rules and subsidies. The latest arrived on August 9th: an executive order introducing screening for outbound investment, and banning some investment into Chinese quantum computing, artificial-intelligence projects and advanced chips. America wants to weaken China’s grip on sensitive industries and, in a motivation that mostly goes unspoken, prepare for a possible by its adversary. This attempt to “de-risk” trade with China is the cornerstone of the White House’s foreign policy. Yet despite extensive efforts, and the reshaping of trade seemingly evident in headline statistics, much of the apparent de-risking is not what it appears.