Donald Trump's press conference concerning China on Friday saw the president launder a long list of complaints against Beijing in which he framed as a "pattern of misconduct" which has lasted "for decades." Whilst the conference was unique in that he accused China of ending Hong Kong's autonomy, he also repeated a number of longstanding accusations that "they've ripped off the United States" for "hundreds of billions of dollars a year" as well as "raided our factories, off shored our jobs, gutted our industries, stole our intellectual property and violated their commitments under the World Trade Organization."

Are these claims true? And does this conference represent a decisive escalation in Trump's own rhetoric from China? Such accusations are hardly new, the Trump administration and his supporters have long simplified global commerce between the U.S. as a zero-sum game whereby one party benefits exclusively at the complete expense of the other, and therefore by logic claimed that China's development, which he moaned still held the status "developing country" at the World Trade Organization, is subsequently responsible for all America's problems which according to the conference past administrations allowed them to get away with. This is a frequent sell to his supporters.

In doing so, the press conference sought to parrot the longstanding line which paints China as one single, unified and malevolent actor which acts in complete tandem and unity to gain advantage over the U.S. in the fields of business and commerce. This generalization persistently overlooks that there are many companies and individuals in China who have sought to do business under their own agency and initiative, than being a part of an overarching gland plot, and that American businesses and corporations themselves have sought to do business in China, with the purpose of exporting back to the United States.

Source: China Daily