Neither country has a clear path to dominance

unhappy Chinese youth react to the fact that they can't make a living in their country?

- 

These problems could come home to roost sooner than we think as a whopping 12 million graduate this summer. In short, China could gain economic superiority and end up socially weakened.

WHITHER AMERICA'S MANUFACTURING RENAISSANCE?

Across the Pacific Ocean, the challenge for Mr Trump is vastly different. He needs to reindustrialise America and convert cutting-edge technological breakthroughs into real-world advantages.

Part of his economic agenda to reshore manufacturing is undeniably driven by a political aim to bring back the blue-collar jobs his base wants. But economists fear that his wide and relentless use of tariffs could also plunge the US economy into recession.

Mr Trump feels he needs to arrest his country's industrial decline. US manufacturing employs just 12.7 million today, compared with its 1979 peak of 20 million. The number of plants has fallen by a quarter since 1997. Meanwhile, China has emerged as the global manufacturing powerhouse, and its value-add is 1½ times that of the US.

Here, Mr Trump thinks the "disturbance" is a small price to pay for the mammoth goal of rebuilding America's capacity for mass production and logistics, so as to maintain its edge over China.

The temporary expansion of US plants making Covid-19 vaccines under Operation Warp Speed enabled the delivery of hundreds of millions of vaccines to Americans in early 2021 and allowed the US to open up for business earlier, driving home the power of onshoring manufacturing.