- it sticks in their craws to know that China is one of their largest creditors
- there is baggage related to industrial espionage (a large part of China's rise was fueled by technological advances that originated from the US)
- there is a lot of bitterness about China's protectionist policies
In recent months, it has become clear that China is clearly superior in healthcare and governance. The US, who thought it was the best in everything, and saw China as a poor cousin, now sees itself impoverished vis-a-vis a poor cousin turned wealthy. Worse, the US believes that China (the poor cousin) became wealth by exploiting/cheating the US.
Hurt and offended, the US is spitefully striking back. Many American MNCs are thinking of moving their manufacturing operations out of China. In the next 2 to 3 years, the lingering spectre of Covid19 will effectively mean that there will be retrenchments from the tourism sector.
Singapore should aggressively lobby for the American MNCs to move operations to Singapore. We can allow some deflation. People will accept it in a Covid19 world. This will make our wages more competitive. At the same time, we have a workforce that is still a very manufacturing economy one because our education system (despite its best efforts to become otherwise) still emphasizes conformity to Standard Operating Procedure.
We have a ready workforce to staff these newly moved in manufacturing operations, that will tide our unemployed workers over the worst of the Covid19.
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