China is bracing for the second coming of Trump
Beijing has acted with unusual urgency after the fallout from the presidential election in the US
He’s back. Donald Trump is poised to return to the White House after beating Democratic Party candidate and United States Vice-President Kamala Harris. As the news reverberated around the world, China reacted with unusual urgency.
Statements were rolled out, while editorials and commentaries followed in China’s tightly controlled state media. Headlines such as “Onus on new US president to improve ties” appeared online, underlining Beijing’s policy.
“Trump has asserted repeatedly that he would impose up to 60% tariffs on Chinese goods and revoke China’s ‘most favored nation’ trading status,” academics Fu Suixin and Ni Feng at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said.
“He has also vowed to further restrict US investment in, and semiconductor exports, to China,” they wrote in a commentary for Communist Party mouthpiece China Daily.
“As a responsible major country, China has always abided by the principles of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, promoting China-US ties,” Fu and Ni said.
The bottom line:
- Trump does not appear to be interested in Beijing’s “win-win cooperation” deal.
- He has often remarked on the campaign trail that it is all about winning.
- The president-elect also boasted that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, would not dare provoke him because he knows he is “crazy.”
His pragmatic prose is unlikely to go down well in Beijing.
Delve deeper: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, he made it clear he would impose massive tariffs on China if it launched a military blockade of the democratic island of Taiwan.
Between the lines: “I would say, if you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you at 150% to 200%,” Trump warned.
Big picture: His pragmatic prose is unlikely to go down well in Beijing, according to Jin Canrong of the School of International Studies at Renmin University. He advised a more diplomatic approach when dealing with Xi.
What was said: “If the new president can learn lessons from his previous term to better manage the China-US relations that would not only be good news to the peoples of China and the US, but also the rest of the world,” Jin told state-run Global Times.
China Factor comment: That is unlikely to happen. Trump has already made it clear what he thinks of China’s trade policies, rolling out the first batch of tariffs during his first term as president. Beijing’s threat is the one thing that unites Republicans and Democrats.