U.S.-China competition, including economic competition, has come to define U.S. foreign policy since 2017. The two economies are the first- and second-largest national economies in the world and are deeply intertwined. Changes to the relationship, however necessary, could be costly. The United States thus faces a challenge ensuring that its economy meets the nation's needs under conditions of coupled, strategic competition. To respond to this challenge, RAND researchers conducted economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China competition, engaged in a participatory foresight exercise to understand the long-term path for ensuring U.S. economic health, and created two economic competition games exploring the dynamics of multiple countries trying to ensure their economic health while interacting with each other and the private sector. This report, the first of a four-part series, includes the economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China economic competition. Individual chapters cover the Chinese concept of economic security; a stock-taking of China-related measures by the United States; an analysis measuring how intertwined supply chains are and options for disentangling them; a theoretical account of the effectiveness of cooperative versus restrictive modes of engaging with China and Chinese officials; and examinations of specific aspects of U.S.-China competition, including return migration of Chinese nationals from the United States to China, energy and environmental security, how Chinese privately owned enterprises might differ from Western private enterprises and implications for policy, and potential ways by which to update the rules of international trade to adapt to China's unique system of economic management.

What does a future U.S. economy look like that will meet domestic needs, sustain national security, and operate effectively in a global economy characterized by strategic economic competition? And what are the available policy pathways for achieving that vision? This report presents the principal findings of an exploratory analysis that applies participatory foresight to answer both questions. In 2023, RAND researchers brought together a diverse group of experts and challenged them to envision the details of a desirable U.S. economy in 2040 and the conditions needed to realize that future. Over two workshops, the experts engaged in an economic and institutional analysis, specifying elements of a vision addressed to domestic, security, and strategic competitive needs. Workshop participants used an innovative and iterative approach to participatory foresight known as Vision, Strategic Concepts, Assumptions, Robust Pathways (VSCARP) that employs a suite of four foresight techniques. Using VSCARP helped participants identify assumptions necessary to achieve their vision for the U.S. economy in 2040. It also allowed participants to develop and map policy pathways that may enable or impede such a future and identify important elements for crafting a robust strategy to achieve goals while confronting uncertainty. In doing so, they provide a template for similar structured multilateral or cross-agency deliberations grappling with wicked problems and deep uncertainty. RAND researchers summarize the challenges and successes of undertaking such a participatory foresight process, and they discuss the many complex and interrelated policy pathways toward possible mid-century futures that the process uncovered.