Kulturraumstudien USA, Work for Week Five (April 20-24)

This week, please watch the Frontline documentary Trump's Trade War and answer the questions featured in this post. Understanding the context for the trade war is crucial for understanding contemporary US-Chinese relations, which are especially relevant for discourse associated with the corona crisis and featured in the 2020 presidential election. Consider this tweet, published by Donald Trump on April 18, 2020 ("Sleepy Joe" is Trump's nickname for Joe Biden): "China wants Sleepy Joe sooo badly. They want all of those billions of dollars that they have been paying to the U.S. back, and much more. Joe is an easy mark, their DREAM CANDIDATE!"

The documentary is roughly one hour long, but I encourage you to invest the time in watching it as it will help you understand much of what you've been seeing in the headlines. (English captions can be added to the video by clicking on the "cc" square at the bottom of the video.) Politicians often take advantage of economic illiteracy and the general public does not understand how the economy works but does understand the job status of themselves and their communities and the price of products and services. The documentary can be accessed here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_xQ5JisFuo

1. Why does the steel worker from Middletown say that he had been waiting a long time for steel tariffs?
2. What are the side effects of (steel) tariffs?
3. Who is Lou Dobbs? (This will require outside research.)
4. In Trump's advisors' trade meetings, what did the two "camps" come to be called?
5. According to Steve Bannon, what was required to fulfill a vision of "making America great again"?
6. How has the US experienced job growth in the past decades?
7. How was calling a "national security emergency" a trick up the sleeve of the US during trade talks with China?
8. Whom did US steel tariffs hurt more than China?
9. How does the Chinese government play a role in its economy?
10. What is the China model?
11. Why is the automobile industry the bellwether of the state of a country's economy, according to Freeman Shen?
12. How large is China's middle class?
13. What is forced tech transfer?
14. How has China broken the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
15. Why did US companies not want to come forward publicly with their complaints about China's practices? What long-term effect might this have had?
(Language note: when James McGregor likens the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony to the "biggest coming-out party in history," he is referring to an older practice when young women were presented to society as "debutantes". Debutante parties/balls are still practiced in some areas in the United States, predominantly in the south.)
16. According to Bill Bishop, when was the turning point in how China viewed the US?
17. What was unprecedented about the Google hack?
18. What make tackling this situation "complicated"?
19. According to James McGregor, whom are US companies that operate in China beholden to and whom are they not?
20. According to Silicon Valley investment banker Ken Wilcox, what is China's long-term goal?
21. According to Dan Wong, why is Silicon Valley at the heart of the trade war?
22. Think back to the Space Race of the 1960s. What new race is the US engaged in?
23. According to James McGregor, where has the US gone wrong in terms of long-term economic growth strategy?
24. What is mercantilism? (This will require outside research.)
25. According to Da Wei, what is the optimistic and what is the pessimistic scenario regarding US-Chinese relations?

You might also be interested in this video by the Financial Times on the labor force in China hitting its Lewis turning point (the point at which workers coming from rural areas hits its peak and begins to decline). This is important context in understanding why China would be pivoting towards technology when much of their economic boom can be chalked up to being a manufacturing titan. Aside from the strange, ominous background music, the video is rather well-done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t487ILVf87k

Some cool music:
Saint Motel "A Good Song Never Dies" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29fcv5E52Y
Audrey Nuna "Time" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ppLBX2YKsQ
Broken Bells "Good Luck" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkv2zF2Bgq0
Nick Hakim "Qadir" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRVmNEidUkw