It suggests that even though
trade tensions between the two countries flared in late March, US government debt still
represents an attractive asset class for Chinese capital flows.
If this happens, to the extent that more countries with a wider range of political goals and institutions join the system created by the Bretton Woods conference, and to the extent that geopolitical
tensions rise in Eurasia, it seems to me that the flat or mildly upward sloping line that
represents the benefits to the US of the global
trading system and the steep upward sloping line that
represents the costs, if they haven't already crossed, must cross soon.