The EconomistJune 27th 2020 Books & arts 692
1Rahsaan Thomas, executive producer of
“s.w.a.t.” on cbs, likens these themes to
medicine—easier to avoid for networks
chasing the largest possible audiences. In
particular, “csi” and “svu” skirt issues of
race by making most offenders and victims
white. The explanations for crime tend to
be psychological, not sociological.
Take a long view, though, and it is clear
that things can change for the better on tv,
because in some respects they already
have. Police dramas have been a staple of
schedules for decades, for obvious reasons:
the stakes are high; the action is fast-paced;
the endings are morally satisfying. But the
genre has evolved. In the 1950s Jack Webb,
the creator of “Dragnet”, adapted genuine
cases. The Los Angeles Police Department
signed off the scripts; its officers were por-
trayed as virtuous and efficient.Bad boys in blue
In the 1980s and 1990s shows such as “Hill
Street Blues” and “Homicide: Life on the
Street” tackled rising urban crime. Policing
cities was portrayed as hard and complicat-
ed; cops broke the law to get the job done. “I
believe in the constitution,” affirms a de-
tective in “nypdBlue”. But if a murder sus-
pect walks free, he says, “I do what I have to
do” to extract a confession. In the 21st cen-
tury two shows—“The Shield” and “The
Wire”, which both first aired in 2002—de-
clined to absolve rogue police. “The Wire”
humanised both cops and criminals and
drew parallels between them, as officers
act badly and cover it up. Still, neither show
implies that police forces are so corrupt or
broken that they ought to be dismantled, as
some in America are now urging.
How can tvreflect that mood? Jason
Mittell of Middlebury College suggests a se-
ries inspired by Camden, New Jersey,
which disbanded its police force in 2013
and reconstituted it with an emphasis on
community relations. Murders decreased.
That, he says, “would let viewers imagine
what it means to rethink this institution,
what happens to society when it is recast.”
A more realistic show might be less fre-
netic. “The constant running and chasing
cars—that’s not what policing is like,” says
Ronal Serpas, a former police chief of New
Orleans now at Loyola University. He notes
that most cops never fire their gun on duty.
They are more likely to answer house
alarms and attend to neighbourhood spats.
Broadcasters will not entirely ditch a
formula that has proved so successful. But
they may have more appetite for dramas
that focus on the policed, such as “When
They See Us”, a recent Netflix series about
black and Latino teenagers wrongfully con-
victed of raping a jogger in Central Park in- Savvier viewers will want more sto-
ries that reflect reality better, predicts Mr
Thomas of “s.w.a.t.”. “The public is ready
for a more nuanced conversation.” 7
R
obertlighthizer, theUnitedStates
trade representative, joined the Trump
administration as a longtime critic of Chi-
na. A protectionist, he had prospered as a
lawyer by fighting Chinese steel firms over
their exports to America, denounced the
country’s admission to the World Trade Or-
ganisation (wto) in 2001, and disparaged
the American government’s approach to its
subsequent rise. As America’s chief trade
negotiator from 2017, he saw an opportuni-
ty to right old wrongs.
Two new books offer accounts of the
economic conflict that Mr Lighthizer
stepped into. In “Superpower Showdown”
Bob Davis and Lingling Wei chronicle his
attempts to negotiate a deal between Amer-
ica and China, which were at times so mud-
dled that the Chinese failed to realise who
was leading the talks. “Trade Wars are Class
Wars”, by Matthew Klein and Michael Pet-
tis, offers a deeper argument about the
source of the trouble. The pair think the
real battle is being fought inside China, be-
tween workers and elites.
Both books point out that the problems
had been building for decades, but, say
Messrs Klein and Pettis, the rot took a while
to set in. When a country is trying to grow
richer,it canhelptokeepconsumerspend-ing low and to channel resources into in-
vestment instead. But in China this strat-
egy lingered for too long. Suppressed
interest rates robbed savers of spending
power and encouraged wasteful invest-
ment; internal migration restrictions held
down wages; a weak currency subsidised
exporters at the expense of consumers. The
result is that Chinese producers make
more stuff than ordinary people can afford
to buy.
Diplomatic tensions arose when the ex-
cess spilled into foreign markets. Spurred
on by the world’s hunger for dollars, Amer-
ica has mopped up much of it—to the detri-
ment of its own manufacturing base.
“Superpower Showdown” illustrates
these trends with stories from both sides of
the Pacific. It includes the tale of Liu Zha-
nyi, whom locals in Guangrao often mis-
took for a truck-driver because of his mod-
est attire, instead of recognising him as the
owner of one of China’s largest tyre export-
ers. Between 2004 and 2008, as his busi-
ness was enjoying success, employment in
the American tyre industry shrank by 14%.
The Obama administration responded
with temporary tariffs on Chinese-made
tyres in 2009, to little effect. By then some
tyre wholesalers and retailers were so de-
pendent on imports that the tariffs pushed
them into bankruptcy.
Mr Lighthizer took a different line of at-
tack. He convinced Mr Trump to launch an
investigation into China’s economic prac-
tices, including the alleged theft of Ameri-
can intellectual property. Unsurprisingly,
this concluded that the Chinese had indeed
sinned, for example by abusing joint ven-
tures with foreign companies to force them
to hand over valuable technology. It was
not lost on the Chinese that Thomas Mur-
phy, chairman of General Motors, had first
suggested these partnerships in 1978 as a
waytoboostChina’scarindustry.Trade and geopoliticsA hill of beans to
die on
Superpower Showdown.By Bob Davis and
Lingling Wei. Harper Business; 480 pages;
$32.50 and £25
Trade Wars are Class Wars. By Matthew
Klein and Michael Pettis. Yale University
Press; 288 pages; $28 and £20Wheels within wheels