...is about much more than trade

For everything from blockbuster films...

...to lunar exploration...

...from semiconductors to submarines

In every domain, they're now rivals

Superpower relations have soured

America thinks that China is stealing secrets...

...stealing its way to dominance

And then it looks at Chinese behaviour in the South China sea...

...and bullying countries like Canada and Sweden...

...and it thinks that China's beginning to challenge global norms

But it looks very different from Beijing

From its point of view...

...America is trying to block its entirely justified rise

For everyone else it seems like the beginnings of a new kind of cold war

A cold war that everybody could lose

Of course America has fought a cold war before with the Soviet Union...

...and it won

So why not just do the same thing again and cut China off?

Isolate it economically

Well it's a bit more complicated than that

In the late 1980s the United States and the Soviet Union...

...did about $2bn-worth of trade a year

Today China and the United States do $2bn-worth of trade a day

And then there are the allies who helped America...

...in the first cold war with the Soviet Union

Well they do a lot of business with China...

...they want to be able to trade with it

It would cost them a lot to stop...

...so to persuade them that they must choose security...

...over their own prosperity...

...would be very hard indeed

The first thing is that the United States...

...needs to build on its strengths

These are often institutions and alliances...

...the institutions that the United States built after the second world war

The second thing the United States needs to do...

...is to shore up its defences

And that means defending itself militarily...

...through cyber and space...

...but also defending its technology

But the third thing is that the United States and China...

...need to learn how to live together...

...in a low-trust world

China and America don't have to agree about everything...

...in order to agree that they should live by some global norms

So you need to find ways to build trust

Over North Korea say...

...over rules for cyberwar or space war

China is challenging America in every domain

Business and a profit motive are no longer enough...

...to keep this relationship together

What the relationship desperately needs...

...is the building of trust and the building of rules

Unfortunately just now both sides see rules as something to break