A Foreign Policy article about “China’s Trump Policy” tells us that “Beijing Is Preparing to Take Advantage of Disruption” (February 6, 2025). Also: “Ultimately, China hopes to use Trump’s policies to its own advantage.”
The more you oppose China, the stronger it gets, maybe.
Surviving Trump
China caught a lucky break with the re-ascendancy of Trump, eh? Well, no. The real argument, it turns out, is that with the help of a little advance warning and a lot of its usual policies, including central planning at home and duplicitous diplomacy abroad, China expects to survive a second Trump presidency.
Author Yun Sun has no recommendations to make to help the U.S. do better against China. He only wants to show that the Chinese Communist Party is not just sitting around in a state of shock. It has been doing things and will be doing more things to weather the Trump storm.
“Beijing has been expecting the Trump administration to pursue tough policies toward China,” an expectation vindicated by Trump’s new tariffs on China. China “retaliated swiftly” with tariffs of its own. But the Chinese government is limited in “its ability to outmaneuver Washington in a tit-for-tat exchange….”
China’s broader plan to survive Trump involves strengthening the Chinese economy and foreign relations.
Beijing’s playbook for riding out the Trump years…focuses on making the domestic economy more resilient, reconciling with key neighbors, and deepening relationships in the global South. Trump may well be able to score some short-term victories, but Beijing’s plans look beyond him. Chinese leaders remain convinced of the country’s historic destiny to rise and displace the United States as the world’s preeminent power. They think that Trump’s policies will undermine U.S. power and reduce U.S. global standing in the long run. And when that happens, China wants to be ready to take advantage.
How is the shoring up of the economy going to happen? By way of the stimulus measures that “China has been introducing…to boost the real economy and strength domestic consumption.” The plan is Biden-inflationary throwing of government money around. We will continue to see “more government spending, interest rate cuts, and other policies meant to generate growth.” But China has no plan to end intervention in markets so that the economy can generate more growth on its own. So no help there.
Trade alternatives
China also wants to find new trading partners.
It hopes to join “the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-member trade agreement that succeeded the Trans-Pacific Partnership…. Members of the CPTPP must meet stringent entry requirements, which in China’s case would require serious structural reform…. As countries move away from the WTO and toward alternative arrangements such as the CPTPP, Beijing wants to make sure it is not left out. With Trump in power, inclusion is all the more vital as China seeks to compensate for lost access to U.S. markets.”
No help there either, yet; just hope. Whether China gets in depends on whether the existing CPTPP members—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam—are okay with helping to fund China’s efforts against the United States.
Meanwhile, China has been expanding trade with other countries to make up for loss of trade with the United States.
Although China would still prefer to trade directly with the United States, leading a parallel trading system with the global South is an acceptable alternative for Beijing. There is a chance Trump could decide to punish third-party countries for their economic cooperation with China, as he has threatened in the case of Panama. Beijing does not have an obvious, easy solution to this type of disruption. But Trump’s moves may not necessarily harm China’s economic relationships, either—for countries on the receiving end of his ire, practical economic considerations could still prevail…. Beijing, furthermore, could reap the benefits if heavy-handed U.S. measures undermine Washington’s relations with key countries.
New best friends
Next up is “mending fences,” as exemplified by a purported “thaw in Chinese-Indian relations.” China and India have apparently agreed to disengage from a border standoff. The more skeptical reporting of others stresses that persistent “lack of trust and differences in strategic objectives would make the resolution process extremely difficult.” Distrust of China is warranted; its play-nice mode doesn’t last.
Japan and Australia, too, are receiving China’s newly beneficent overtures.
Let’s say that China is readier for Trump than it was eight years ago. Might Trump and other leaders also be readier for China?
