Some believe in the "Thucydides Trap": the idea that, since a rising power will challenge the dominance of an established one, a China-U.S. trade war will be inevitable. Being the largest and the second largest trading nations globally, the U.S. and China are in fact each other's most important...

Should the China-U.S. trade agreement prompt relief because it averts a damaging trade war or concern because selective preferential access for the United States to China's markets breaks multilateral rules against discrimination? The answer depends on how China implements the agreement....