I think that's a valid take. But OTOH, broad, principled terms like "free trade" mask some of the nuance and realities of that history. Free markets have alwa

I think that's a valid take. But OTOH, broad, principled terms like "free trade" mask some of the nuance and realities of that history. Free markets have always come thick with caveats to suit whatever goals the authors/negotiators had at the time. The US, for example, generally prioritized investment access and largely got it. They also prioritized economic infrastructure, like the dollar standard and globalising the US patent system. Meanwhile, agricultural markets were kept outside of the mix, which is a huge deal to many politically/economically weak countries. The line between a bad faith exploitation of the system (as you characterized china) and an acceptable exception was determined by political interests and power dynamics, not by principles. What I'm saying is not that china "plays fair" or that the US does. What I'm saying is that it's a game where rules get made on the fly and power matters. There's a tendency to see your own priorities (patents stand out to me, in the US-China context) as obvious non-issues and rivals' priorities as huge compromises. I think it's wise to limit the moral reasoning which leads to finger pointing and conflict. Meanwhile, there's always a lot of dirty dealing on all sides. Putting up trade barriers on national security pretexts or whatnot. I think the Singaporean minister has the broad point right. The US had an incredibly central role in creating the current global trade setup. This reflected their power (and prestige, especially in Europe) at the time. The system wasn't a bad one and China has been a great beneficiary of it. A lot of the non-economic reasoning did come to fruition too. China is a far more open-to-the-world society today. But... The size of China's current economy changes the political balance. They will demand a US-like role and unless that's accepted by the US, politically & emotionally, we're headed for a recessive period.