The US and China this week are pitching rival visions of what constitutes a resilient and sustainable supply chain, marking the latest chapter in their fierce competition to assert a global trading system built around their respective economic needs.
Just hours before Beijing was to launch its first international expo on supply chains featuring American tech giants like Tesla, Apple, Intel and Qualcomm under the tagline “connecting the world for a shared future”, US President Joe Biden convened the inaugural meeting of his supply-chain resilience council in Washington on Monday.
In doing so, Biden announced 30 new actions “to strengthen supply chains critical to America’s economic and national security”, according to the White House.
The measures are meant to spur domestic production of essential medicines and cut reliance on “high-risk foreign supplies” of medical products, calling to mind widely held American concerns at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
They entail new investments in tools to monitor supply chains by sharing data more efficiently among federal agencies and assessing risks to the supply of renewable energy resources.
The framework seeks to establish rules covering areas ranging from data protection to carbon emissions, and its founding members comprise 14 Asia-Pacific…
