Constructive dialogue indicates decoupling reports wide of the mark

US President Donald Trump's remark in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that the United States would completely decouple from China has been overblown and taken out of context by some Western media outlets, which have reported what was essentially a restatement of his June 19 tweet that "the US certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China", as though such a scenario is imminent.

But contrary to the media reports sensationalizing his remarks, the reality is the decoupling of the world's two largest economies is neither reasonable nor feasible. The reality is that while the US is trying to decouple to some extent in areas such as science and technology, coupling is intensifying in other areas, such as the financial and agricultural sectors.

As shown by the telephone conversation between Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Tuesday morning, the two countries may be willing to carry on from where they left off.