Decoupling
디커플링
Decoupling refers to the structural separation of one national economy from another, and has become the central concept for describing the strategic severing of US–China trade, technology, financial, and supply-chain links since 2018. Triggered by the Trump 1 tariff war, institutionalized under the Biden administration through semiconductor export controls and the CHIPS Act, and intensified under Trump 2 as 'selective decoupling' (blockading technology and military sectors while maintaining consumer-goods dependence), it marks a shift in the form of imperial dominance. In Marxist analysis, decoupling is understood as an aspect of imperial reorganization in which a declining hegemon abandons liberal economic integration in favor of direct coercion and blockade.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Wikipedia article covering the decoupling hypothesis (2007–2008 financial crisis) and its evolution into US–China strategic decoupling since 2017, including export controls, investment screening, and the CHIPS Act.
- oxfordenergy.org Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (Michal Meidan, 2019): the working assumption that US-China relations would become increasingly fraught 'well beyond the Trump era,' with decoupling gaining prominence in US policy discourse.
- Wikipedia (EN) Documents the tariff war from 2018 onward, the Biden administration's retention and expansion of restrictions, and the Trump 2 escalation including 145% tariffs and Supreme Court invalidation under IEEPA.
- Wikipedia (EN) Describes Trump 2 foreign policy as dismantling the post-1945 rules-based liberal international order, favoring hard power, and continuing the trade war with China.