Keep Your Frenemies Close: Proposed China Sanctions and the Price of Escalation

On August 30, 2015, the Washington Post broke a story that the Obama administration is developing a package of economic sanctions that will target Chinese companies and individuals who have benefitted from cybertheft. The new sanctions would come at a time when commerce between the two countries is thriving, but political relations are strained. As the United States and China have expanded their economic interdependence, they have also continued to ratchet up their economic competition. They are partners in an ungainly pas-de-deux. The two countries cannot afford to take swings at one another but, at the same time, neither can afford to have its partner picking its pockets.