Global Supply Chain Reallocation and Shift under Triple Crises: A U.S.-China Perspective

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how US-China trade tensions, COVID-19, and geopolitical conflicts have reshaped global supply chains from 2016 to 2023, revealing China's resilience and shifts in US import sourcing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of supply chain reallocation under multiple crises, introducing a resilience framework based on GVC participation, functional position, and re-coupling capacity.

Findings

China's exports remained robust and expanded globally.

US imports shifted towards 'China+1' partners like ASEAN.

Global reallocation centered around US and China across successive shocks.

Abstract

US-China trade tensions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have disrupted and reshaped global supply chains. Existing studies caution that these tensions may not meaningfully reduce U.S. dependence on China-linked supply chains. This study examines the drivers of this unmet reallocation under overlapping geopolitical and public health disruptions. It investigates how these shocks jointly reconfigured bilateral trade and global value chain (GVC) participation and positioning among the U.S., China, and major trading partners during 2016-2023. Using monthly bilateral trade data across all sectors and multi-regional input-output tables for GVC decomposition, we combine a multi-period event-study with structural analysis to evaluate trade-flow disruptions and shifts in participation and functional positioning within GVCs. We find that China's exports remained robust, expanded across global markets, and sustained a rise in GVC participation, becoming more embedded in upstream segments through increased intermediate shipments to Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. imports increasingly shifted toward "China+1" partners, especially ASEAN, whose trade structures remain closely tied to Chinese upstream supply chains. These strengthening triangular relationships reveal how global reallocation and GVCs have evolved around the U.S. and China across successive shocks. Based on the evidence, we propose a supply chain resilience framework defined by three interacting dimensions: the level of GVC participation, the functional position within the value chain, and a country's capacity to re-couple in the post-shock landscape, conditioned by market diversification, economic complexity, and institutional capability. These findings carry significant implications for trade policy and industrial strategy in an era of geopolitical and geoeconomic fragmentation.