Is Google the Omen of a U.S.-China Trade War?

From Beijing's standpoint, there's a lot of that going around at the moment. For the past two weeks, China has been in a rhetorical firefight with the U.S. about the value of the renminbi (RMB) vs. the dollar. President Barack Obama called on Beijing to let the RMB more accurately reflect market fundamentals — most economists believe the RMB is undervalued relative to the dollar — because doing so would help boost U.S. exports to China. Premier Wen Jiabao said China had no intention of doing that anytime soon because so many of its exporters are barely profitable as it is. And in response to calls in the U.S. Congress for tariffs on Chinese goods should RMB revaluation not occur, China's Minister of Commerce, Chen Deming, bluntly told the Washington Post on Sunday that in the event of a trade war, the "American people and U.S. companies" would suffer more than China.