Many believe the recent
deterioration in US–China relations represents a 'New Cold War'
rooted in ideological differences. However, such differences did not
prevent the two countries from pursuing economic integration and
geopolitical cooperation in the 1990s and 2000s. Ho-fung Hung argues
that what underlies the change in US–China relations is the
changing relationship between US–China corporations. Following
China's slowdown after 2010, state-backed Chinese corporations turned
increasingly aggressive when they expanded in both domestic and
global markets. This was at the expense of US corporations, who then
halted their previously intense lobbying for China in Washington.
Simultaneously, China's export of industrial overcapacity has
provoked geopolitical competition with the United States. The
resulting dynamic, Hung argues, resembles interimperial rivalry among
the great powers at the turn of the twentieth century.