Deepening reform to counter trade threat

The United States continues to ratchet up its trade threats against China, the latest being the threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese exports, up from the 10 percent mooted previously.

Last month US President Donald Trump said, "I'm ready to go to 500"; in other words, impose tariffs on almost all Chinese exports to the US, which last year totaled $505 billion.

With the US' trade policy tending to follow Trump's trade rhetoric, it's worth thinking through just how much pain Washington could potentially inflict. Could it derail China's economic rise?