BEIJING (Bloomberg) — A trade war between the US and China triggered by disagreements over the value of the yuan is unlikely as the economic interests of the nations are too closely linked, China International Capital Corporation said.

"Historically, major trade wars occurred because supply chains were not connected globally and countries were rivals in trade," economists at the Beijing-based investment bank led by Zhang Zhiwei wrote in a report yesterday.

"However, the globalisation of production has made the US and China more like partners in trade than rivals." Tensions are running high as US lawmakers are set to vote today on a bill that would let American companies petition for punitive tariffs on Chinese imports to compensate for the effects of what they say is an artificially weak yuan. China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world's second biggest economy and surpassed Germany last year as the largest exporter. A punitive tariff on imports from China, which is at the end of the East Asian supply chain, would hurt all the countries in that chain, the US included, the CICC economists wrote.