Xi Jinping has been preparing for this moment for years.
In April 2020, long before President Trump started a trade war that would shake the global economy, China’s top leader held a meeting with high -ranking officials from the Communist Party and determined his vision for turning the table to the USA in a confrontation.
The tensions between his government and the first Trump government had cooked over an earlier round of tariffs and technology restrictions. After the creation of Covid, which brought global trade to a standstill, it got worse and revealed how much the United States and the rest of the world needed China for everything, from surgical masks to pain relievers.
In view of Washington’s concern, China could have opened its economy for foreign companies with regard to the trade weight weight, as it had undertaken decades ago. It could have bought more American planes, crude oil and soybeans, as his officials had promised Mr. Trump during the trade talks. It could have stopped subsidizing factories and state companies that made steel and solar collectors so cheap that many American manufacturers went out of business.
Instead, Mr. XI chose an aggressive approach.
The Chinese leaders have to “tighten the dependence of the international production chains from our country and form a strong ability to counter and stop foreign parties from artificially disturbing supplies to China,” said Xi in his speech before 2020 in his speech on the Commission for Central Financial and Economic Affairs.
Simply put: China should dominate the care of things that the world needs to think about his opponents twice, use tariffs or cut China.
Mr. XI has increased exports and deepened the position of China as the world’s leading production level, partly by instructions from the state-controlled commercial banking system over the past four years to an additional $ 2 trillion to industrial creditors. He has also introduced new weapons of the economic war into the country’s arsenal: export controls, antimonopoly laws and blacklists because they are repelled in American companies.
When the current Trump government hit large tariffs to Chinese goods, China was able to go on the offensive. In addition to retribution with its own taxes, it imposed export restrictions on a variety of critical minerals and magnets, whose global care had driven China into the tightness. Such minerals are essential for the compilation of cars and drones to robots and rockets.
In the United States, the impending threat caused by empty shop shelves and higher consumer prices put pressure on the Trump management. According to Argus Media, a London research company in London, the prices of some critical minerals have tripled since China introduced its curbs.
“It is about turning the leverage in such a way that the world is dependent on China and that China is not dependent on anyone. It is a reversal of what XI irritated what China was so dependent on the West,” said Kirsten Asdal, a former intelligence advisor at the US defense department, who now leads a China-oriented consulting company as an asdal advisory company.
China is still dependent on the West for many advanced technologies, such as high-end and aircraft engines. However, the willingness to cope with the supply chain is one of the most strong examples of how Mr. Xi China’s relationship with the world redefines and challenges the dominance of the United States like no Chinese leader before him.
Choose the world to choose pages
Although they are now starting talks, of which American officials say they are supposed to surrender to the de -escalation of tensions, the two nations seem to be established on a non -artificial competition, especially about important technologies that will shape the future like artificial intelligence.
Their rivalry can split the world into competing areas of influence. Since the United States urge other countries to restrict the trade with China, and in Beijing that they will punish the nations that do this, the pressure to choose pages.
“China will use all the instruments in availability to cause pain and to cause the United States and every country that is in line with America,” said Evan Medeiros, professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama Asia consultant.
“The whole world,” continued Mr. Medeiros, “to learn the answer to a very important question: how do we know about China and how much is it worth to us?”
The Trump administration has already shown that it cannot completely separate trade relationships with Beijing. It frees Chinese smartphones, semiconductors and other electronics from some of his tariffs. Mr. Trump also went back to the car manufacturers. China also quietly pointed out that some semiconductor, life -saving medication and other health products could exclude its 125 percent tariffs for American goods.
Nevertheless, the flood of tariffs in the heart of the China is growing in the heart of the China. Exports were one of the few bright spots in an economy that was severely weakened by a real estate crisis and a flap -based consumer confidence. If the trade war attracts, this could lead to millions of lost jobs in China, analysts appreciate.
“Never kneel down!”
For years, Mr. XI has said that the United States should thwart China’s increase, and the trade war seems to have confirmed its warnings.
He seems more inclined than ever before bowing China’s muscles and considering the commercial struggle as a test of his authority as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. And his strategy reflects his perception that China is no more than the United States.
When he got power in 2012, Mr. XI promised to follow “the great renewal of the Chinese nation”. This ambition is the core of the myth around Mr. XI: that it is a transformative figure that restores China’s glory and reverse a century of humiliation from foreign powers.
In order to achieve his goals, Mr. XI changed the rules so that the power could stay in the power for an indefinite period. He has made national security an all-of-social priority. He poured money into strategic industries such as semiconductors, of which he believes that they will help China to compete better with the United States.
China has expanded its dominance in lithium-ion batteries, which are used to carry out electric vehicles, innovative robots for the production, solar collectors and wind turbines. Experts say that China also catches up with the United States in artificial intelligence, which are considered the battle of the next industrial revolution.
Mr. Xi also tightened his grip around China’s huge propaganda apparatus, which has been taken with in the past few weeks to collect the public for a lengthy “fight”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs published A video About the trade conflict on social media entitled “Never Knie Down!”
“The trade war is the ultimate validation that try to contain, suppress and surround China to contain, suppress and surround China,” said Ms. Asdal. “Xi says:” We have to be man enough and strong enough to defend themselves. “
Even if Mr. XI had to return first, he could turn a tactical withdrawal as a victory over Mr. Trump.
“This concentration of authority enables the Chinese guide to make extensive political decisions unchallenged – and to reverse the course just as quickly” A new article For the magazine for foreign matters.
The costs for China
It is not clear that Mr. XI China’s long-term strategy will make strong enough to overtake the United States as a top superpower. The focus on critical technologies and economic self -confidence has deteriorated with China’s trading partners and is free of charge for many Chinese households.
The American leaders said that when China expanded its economic connections to the West, it would gradually move towards political liberalization and a complete hug of the free markets. But China continued on its own conditions and mixed its authoritarian one-party system with capitalism and richer without losing political control.
Mr. XI doubled this model and directed more capital to government companies and banks to ensure that the Communist Party had to say even more about the direction of the economy. Entrepreneurs were once given space for growth, but under Mr. XI the officials determine which industries thrive and which broke. A more open economy that is driven by market demand and not by the political mandate could have expanded the ranks and influence of the companies of China and the bourgeois consumers.
But that would have presented a challenge for the control of the party about society.
“This is not an economy that a statistical government desires, and therefore underwear has long been recognized as a problem, even at the highest level of the government,” said Yasheng Huang, an expert in the Chinese economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Slool of Management. But “there were no comparable reforms,” ​​he added.
Experts have long argued that the expenditure on the social well -being of China’s economy would make more balanced and less susceptible to the West. The Chinese economists have asked the government to invest in hospitals and pensions and to help the hundreds of millions of rural migrants in the city for urban benefits. Such steps are considered to be decisive for encouraging ordinary Chinese citizens, to save less and to spend more, which contributes more to the country’s growth.
Some experts even wonder whether Mr. XI should challenge the United States so aggressively instead of the famous dictum of a former top leader, Deng Xiaoping, to follow: “Hide your strength, your time.”
“China has become so ambitious without still reaching the status of the superpower,” said Shen Dingli, a scholar based in Shanghai who focuses on US China ties.
Mr. Shen quoted Beijing’s expansive demands in the South China Sea; the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy; And the flood of Chinese exports that make it difficult for other countries to compete in stores. Together they alienated a large part of the world and contributed to a calculation for Mr. XI.
China once had a “cheap external environment” for development as a nation, but it “worsened,” said Shen. “It is very unfortunate.”
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed the reporting from Seoul and Berry Wang And Joy Dong From Hong Kong.