Expected Geopolitical Threat, Not Actual Economic Benefit, Leading to the Deep-Level US-China Decoupling

What decouples a perfect couple like China and the US? Building upon the perspectives of global supply chain (in the domains of merchandise trade and technological collaboration) and coopetition (related to value creation and value capture), we seek to answer the above question. First, we make a general argument that the ChinaUS decoupling could be better explained by the geopolitical logic rather than the economic logic, reflecting different motivational intentions, with the former being largely conflicting or competing, while the latter being largely interdependent or cooperative. Second, we propose and show support with data during 2008~2020 for the specific argument that the diverse effects of geopolitical and economic forces on the China-US decoupling effectively explain the dynamics in both merchandise trade and technological collaboration, reflecting different bargaining powers, with the former being largely symmetrical about interdependence, and the latter being largely asymmetrical about the dependence by China on the US. Further, we examine the moderating effect of friend-shoring on the link between the antecedents (i.e., the economic and geopolitical forces) and the outcomes (i.e., the decoupling in merchandise trade and technological collaboration).