Before China’s fighter jets roared and its ballistic missiles screamed into the seas off Taiwan last week, analysts had already begun laying out — from incursion to inaction — what investors could expect next.
Consensus among those forecasters was in short supply, and if anything, there is even less of it now. Both the US and China have spent recent days arguing about the definition and condition of the status quo, but the status quo now feels unambiguously in motion. The safest-looking analytical bet, in that context, is on sharply accelerated economic decoupling between the US and China, but how likely is it to move from the current, highly selective form to a broader split?
Beyond the three days of Chinese military exercises due to end on Sunday and the petulantly imposed sanctions on Nancy Pelosi herself, the possible consequences of the US House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan sit on a wide speculative spectrum….
