Xi Jinping wants to know that it won’t be cowed.
Facing the last threat by President Trump for an additional 50 % invoice to Chinese goods, unless Beijing reverses its contrasting contributions to US imports, China’s leading leader remained provocative. The Ministry of Commerce accused him of the United States on Tuesday of “blackmail” and said Beijing would “fight to the end”.
But behind the enemy is a more complicated set of realities for Mr Xi who makes politically and economically unfounded to provide concessions to the country’s only commercial partner and the lead opponent for global influence. With Mr Trump also refusing to retreat, a catastrophic trade war between the two largest economies can be inevitable – a clash with painful consequences that will be felt around the world.
The dilemma for Mr Xi is that the appearance is not an option, but the rear blow is at risk of further escalation. The Chinese leader has thrown himself as a national savior who rejuvenates the grandeur of his country. As a result, Beijing has less flexibility to retreat from a Washington fight, like other US partners, such as Vietnam, have tried because they could underestimate Mr Xi’s legitimacy, analysts say.
“Beijing’s response to date has underlined three things: determination, durability and retaliation,” said Julian Gewirtz, a former Chinese senior official in the White House and Foreign Department under President Biden, who is now writing a book.
“Xi has created an image of himself as a provocative powerful with a strong country and China’s official exchange of messages reports that they are determined to withstand the pressure even at high costs,” he said.
This helps to explain why China threw an agreement to sell part of Tiktok to US investors last week, responding to Mr Trump’s sweeping invoices and why it resists the sale of ports owned by Hong Kong Ck Hutchison along the Panama channel.
He also plays why Beijing on Tuesday threatened more countermeasures if Mr Trump passed an additional 50 % on invoices on Chinese goods. China said it was willing to have talks, but not under pressure.
China leaders are likely to estimate that the conflict with Trump’s administration is inevitable, analysts say. Mr Trump’s invoices last week – which are also targeting countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, where Chinese companies have set up factories to inflate US invoices earlier – will be regarded in Beijing as proof that Washington is determined to prevent China.
“From this advantage, there is nothing to be acquired by the recording of Trump’s latest demand, because it will not solve the UN -States’ underlying challenge,” said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China at The Brookings Institution. “At best, they believe, it will simply postpone America’s determination to destroy China’s economy.”
Increasing tensions make a meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Trump increasingly unlikely.
Mr Trump, who considers his unpredictable signature weapon, said he was open to deal with Mr Xi, even suggesting that the Chinese leader would visit. However, Chinese officials are reluctant to plan a meeting until the two sides have negotiated details in advance.
Even if Mr Xi had to be broken and made to Mr Trump’s requests to cancel China invoices, it is not clear what, if any, trade agreement would make a significant dent in exploiting the imbalance between the two countries. The United States introduced Chinese goods worth $ 440 billion last year, more than three times the value of the $ 144 billion of US goods introduced by China.
Beijing believes that Mr Trump is uniquely focused on undermining China’s sovereignty in exports to bring the construction back to the United States, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
“Disconation can be endgame,” Ms Sun said, describing how China probably interprets Mr Trump’s motives.
Mr Xi has long warned that China’s rise would probably not be indifferent to the West and was largely invested in the efforts to build China’s confidence.
This week, as stock markets around the world collapsed, Beijing mobilized state -owned banks and investment companies, well -known in China as a “national team”, to promote their participation in Chinese shares in an effort to prevent decline. Chinese stocks increased slightly on Tuesday after large reductions the day before.
And The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, published a comment on Sunday, urging Chinese citizens to have confidence in China’s ability to overcome tariffs. The track claimed that China has expanded its commercial markets outside the United States and that the Chinese economy is growing more self -sufficient with the help of discoveries in technology such as artificial intelligence.
Economists say these points are true, but that a complete trade war on the scale threatened by Mr Trump will still cause significant pain in China. If Trump’s administration imposes an additional 50 %invoice, it could bring the US contribution to Chinese goods to 104 %. For some products, however, the rate is likely to be much higher due to the invoices dating from Mr Trump’s first term.
Chinese exporters may not simply be able to divert their goods to other countries because the flood of Chinese exports has already been addressed with concern in major markets such as the European Union.
At the same time, in this game of pricing arm, analysts in China believe that Mr Trump will be more likely to succumb to domestic pressure to change the treatment due to the increasing costs of the goods and prices of stocks in the United States.
“If it is about who can endure more pain, China will not lose,” said Wang Wen, a dean of the Chongyang Institute of Finance Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.
The United States needed China, Mr Wen said, more than China needed the United States because Chinese factories make accessories and accessories that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
“Other countries will buy goods from China and then sell them to the United States,” he said.
Part of China’s strategy was also to use the chaotic consequences of Mr Trump’s invoices to try to pull the rest of the world away from Washington’s orbit.
Mr. Xi plans to visit the countries of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam next week. Beijing also tried to project a united front with Japan and South Korea against Mr Trump’s invoices, although officials in Tokyo and Seoul, who are based on security for security, have been removed from the Chinese position.
On the same day that Mr Trump revealed his invoices, the China Foreign Ministry posted a video on the social media that threw the United States as a source of damage and volatility, with references to the US president’s impulse to displace immigrants and imposed on invoices. “Do you want to live in such a world?” A narrator asks.
Scenes of Chinese peace troops and Chinese rescue groups were followed by the victims from the ruins after the recent Myanmar earthquake, which put a soundtrack with John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
“There is no doubt that Beijing is militant right now,” said Danny Russel, a diplomat and security analyst at the Asia Institute in Washington. The Foreign Ministry video is “Pure Jujitsu Propaganda” aimed at “painting of Trump’s invoices as a reckless American chaos, while China offers order and cooperation”.
“But the view from Beijing is conflicting,” Mr Russel said. “Beijing’s instinct is to avoid interrupting his enemy when he is wrong, but they are deeply worried that these mistakes could collapse the global economy and China with him.”
