Abstract:
The US tariffs on China have been perceived as a black swan event - an external shock that rocked the economic status quo in Asia. The extent to which these tariffs were endogenously related to the ongoing transformation of investment and trade patterns within Asia, however, is less explored. True, US tariffs are known to have provoked direct reactions from heavily affected countries like China: Chinese plants and companies scrambled to relocate to Southeast Asian countries to dodge them. To date, Vietnam and Indonesia have been the most frequent destinations, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia.