In his new fight with China, the next American president, Donald Trumpyou will find a country with a weakened economy but more comfortable in the world and with its duties fulfilled. In the Beijing chancelleries, it was rumored during his previous mandate that that atrabilious guy, alien to protocol, baffled Chinese diplomacy. . In recent months Beijing has strengthened its friendships and mitigated discordapproved laws to expedite the commercial counterattacks, accelerated technological self-sufficiency, diversified the destination of its exports and set aside million-dollar items so thatself-consumption mitigate the damage of export tariffs.
A look at the past helps outline the future. Washington and Beijing enjoyed harmonious years, with that presidential dinner at Mar-a-Lago as a zenith, until the complaints about Chinese theft of industrial property and other tricks led to a tariff war. It was not a tooth for a tooth, as the press stubbornly described it, but Beijing was in tow using the essential force so that the world would not perceive it as cowed. It concluded in January 2020 after a dozen rounds of negotiation with an agreement by which China committed to buy 200,000 million dollars of American products to mitigate the trade imbalance. It prevented it pandemic that precipitated Trump’s goodbye after his criminal management. This is how the match ended, which will resume in January.
Falcon Cabinet
Uplifting years are coming. Trump will not tone down his most populist politics when Americans with negative feelings towards China have risen in a few years from 30% to 70%. His cabinet brings together recalcitrant hawks in key positions such as Peat HegsethSecretary of Defense, or Mike WaltzSecurity Advisor. Marco RubioSecretary of State, has been sanctioned twice by Beijing.
In this context, China has intensified its global procession. There is little precedent for a diplomatic marathon like that of its president, Xi Jinpingthis week in Peru and Brazil. It is symptomatic that he attended this edition of the G-20 after having been absent from the previous one. In the first family photo he took center stage with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Logistical” issues had prevented Joe Biden’s punctuality and the photo had to be repeated the next day but the first had already circulated as a harbinger of what was to come.
At summits and bilateral meetings, about fifteen according to the official press count, Xi repeated that China is the safe and reliable alternativea champion of free trade and globalizationin the face of Trump’s protectionism and uncertainty. Diplomatic sources describe the Chinese turn in international summits, more protagonist than timid and emphasizing global concerns over its own. It is the role that tradition gave to the United States.
In the Middle East
China is now more relaxed in the world and involved in its governance. His achievements in the powder keg of the Middle East are not lacking. He dragged two stubborn rivals to the negotiating table, Iran and Saudi Arabia and got all the Palestinian factions to sign an agreement for reconstruction. His commercial muscle helps him because it doesn’t seem like a good idea to snub your main partner.
China has strengthened BRICSwhich already accounts for 35% of the world economy, and the OShanghai Cooperation Organization, counterweights to Western hegemonic architecture and similar expansive processes. Representatives from around sixty countries attended the last BRICS summit along with the five original members. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and the Arab Emirates have already entered and only the arrival to power of Javier Milei has left Argentina out.
It is advisable to strengthen friendships as much as lighten the bag of conflicts. Con India It agreed in September to withdraw troops from the border after four years of tensions and dozens of deaths, a requirement from New Delhi to regain harmony. A month later he raised Japan’s seafood ban that had been imposed for the discharge of Fukushima water into the Pacific. The recent visit to Australia of Prime Minister Li Qiang, certified the renewed health of relations after the turbulent conservative mandate. and with Europa He has lowered his tone even with the war in Ukraine and the tariffs involved. Other issues hinder his message, such as certain matonism in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea or the access barriers to its internal market that persist no matter how much it promises the opposite.
Slowed growth
Rozaba 7% annual growth lhe Chinese economy when Trump won his first election and this year it will hopefully reach 5%. Since then they have piled upThe bad news. The post-pandemic rebound never came, has collapsed the real estate sector that contributed a quarter of the national GDP and an exaggerated sense of crisis has engulfed self-consumption. Trump then applied tariffs ranging between 7 and 25% on Chinese products and now promises 60% for all. It is a legitimate question: will this China resist an open war against the first, more mature and dynamic world economy?
“China is certainly better prepared now. In the previous mandate they did not know how to respond. They now know where to direct their retaliatory tariffs (for example, to American ranchers), have diversified their international trade (although it has also increased with the United States), and have taken other measures to reduce their vulnerability (such as local semiconductor production). They have also used the initiative of the New Silk Road and other associations with countries dissatisfied with American dominance,” he says. Anthony Saichsinologist at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Tax stimulus
China approved its long-awaited fiscal stimulus 10 trillion yuan (1.3 billion euros) in November. He waited for the result of the US elections and it is certain that he adjusted it upwards after Trump’s victory. It is an example of its influence on Chinese economic policies. Their attacks on technology companies such as Huawei or ZTE convinced Beijing that there was an urgent need for self-sufficiency. Eight years ago, China had four government projects to replace foreign hardware and software with national technology; now there are 169.
Tariffs are, analysts say, a negotiating basis on which Trump will negotiate benefits in exchange for discounts. “China has to be prepared to a very tough negotiation. Trump wants a good deal and will push as hard as he can,” said Wu Xinbo, dean of Fudan University, in a recent talk. China has no shortage of weapons against the United States. It could punish multinationals that balance their annual balance sheets with the Chinese market, devalue the yuan, get rid of the US treasury bondscut the rare mineral exports or deepen its trade with other regions.
A reasonable negotiation is foreseeable. If everything goes wrong, China and the United States will be seriously damaged. That message, along with that of a luminous horizon of cooperation,. But Washington discarded the idea of common progress years ago, and Republicans and Democrats have competed since then in blocking China’s path. Make America Great again it inevitably passes, according to Trumpist doctrine, through dwarf China.
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