Before China’s fighter jets roared and its ballistic missiles screamed into the seas off Taiwan last week, analysts had already begun laying out — from incursion to inaction — what investors could expect next. Consensus among those forecasters was in short supply, and if anything, there is even less of it now. Both the US and China have spent recent days arguing about the definition and condition of the status quo, but the status quo now feels unambiguously in motion. The safest-looking analytical bet, in that context, is on sharply accelerated economic decoupling between the US and China, but how likely is it to move from the current, highly selective form to a broader split?
Beyond the three days of Chinese military exercises due to end on Sunday and the petulantly imposed sanctions on Nancy Pelosi herself, the possible consequences of the US House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan sit on a wide speculative spectrum. China’s abrupt suspension on Friday, of bilateral meetings and co-operative talks on everything from defence policy co-ordination to drug-smuggling, lengthens the list of bad plausible scenarios.
Decoupling has a credible ring. There is already visible political momentum for it on both sides. There is nothing to suggest greater closeness is in prospect, and plenty that foreshadows the divergence expanding well beyond the two central players — including Chinese missiles landing in Japan’s exclusive economic zone for the first time. The decoupling narrative, though, is one with hard limits of both time and scale and they should not be overlooked because of the events of the past week.