Xi Jinping isn't worried about Trump 2.0. Photo: Johannes Eisele/Getty.

When Donald Trump increased the tariffs on Chinese goods to 20% last week, China’s Foreign Ministry blasted back that it was ready for a tariff war, a trade war, or “any other kind of war”. “China will fight to the end,” it added. But as startling as this might sound, the riposte was really rather mild by Chinese standards — boilerplate Foreign Ministry outrage. It certainly didn’t come across as realistic as Ontario premier Doug Ford’s threats to cut off the power to Minnesota as payback for tariffs on Canadian lumber.
For in truth, Beijing doesn’t seem all that concerned about Trump 2.0. An experienced China policy analyst told me a few days ago that Beijing’s political thinkers see Trump as “no worse than Joe Biden”. The Chinese public, likewise, seems genuinely relaxed about Trump’s return. According to recent polling from the European Council on Foreign Relations, 34% of the Chinese public welcomed Trump, and 21% didn’t feel strongly about him. (This would suggest that Trump is currently polling better in China than in California.)
Zhou Bo, former Senior Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, and author of Should the World Fear China?, corroborated this view, telling me that most Chinese are not worried about Trump. “Compared with his attitude towards the rest of the world,” Zhou said, “[Trump] looks confusingly yet almost pleasantly ‘friendly’ towards China.” Zhou believes that Trump has learned from his first term that his signature unpredictability will not work as well on a peer competitor as it does on small or medium powers. Tariffs would be less effective too, as China moves toward a more self-sufficient economy. And compared to Trump’s first term, China’s economy is less dependent on America specifically. “So why should China worry?”
Another reason some Chinese are unfazed by Trump is that they believe his worldview opens up more space for China. The phrase “Trump founder of our nation” is bounding about a lot in China at the moment; the logic is that by distancing itself from its European and perhaps Asian partners, America is creating opportunities for China to exploit. German auto companies, for instance, might choose to partner with Chinese firms as America’s markets grow harder to access. America’s turn away from green tech is also opening up more space for China to sell solar and wind equipment to the Global South.
But that doesn’t mean the Chinese think badly of the US president. On the contrary, Trump is a familiar, and not unwelcome, figure in China’s social media ecology. “Looks like there’s a show to watch for the next four years,” said one Weibo user just after Trump’s election, in a post that was liked some 38,000 times. China’s “netizens” admittedly aren’t fans of his anti-Beijing rhetoric, although Trump’s kept that on a simmer rather than a boil since the inauguration. But nationalistic billionaires with strong opinions are now pretty commonplace in China, and that lot give Trump credit for his unashamed pro-American stance: China is not a place where bashful opinions about your own country gain much respect.
What’s more, many Chinese feel they’ve met Trump’s kind before, or at least, their parents have. One described Trump’s whiplash shifts in domestic policy to me as “the American Cultural Revolution”. The original Chinese version saw the supreme leader dismantle his own party from within, demand that people reject everything from the past as “old culture”, and empower 19-year-olds to lecture their elders about righteous political conduct. So far, no American federal employees have been made to take the “airplane position”, unlike those Chinese bureaucrats who were forced to stretch out their arms for hours on end. But plenty have been told that they’re the equivalent of the “cow demons” and “ghosts” targeted by Mao’s Red Guards. There has been no sign at all of the mass violence that scarred China’s major cities in 1966. Yet in China at least, there’s a sense that history is rhyming, if not repeating itself.
If there’s one element of Trump’s new regime that does worry some in Beijing, it’s the idea of a “reverse Nixon”, which has been floated in certain Washington circles. The theory goes that by getting closer to Russia, the US can force a peace on Ukraine, and then work with its new partners in Moscow to push back on Beijing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently gave an account on Breitbart of why it would be wise for the US to avoid confronting a firm Sino-Russian alliance, and argued that America should try to prevent that outcome by becoming closer to Russia. One Beijing thinktanker I spoke to buys into this idea strongly: he was at pains, privately, to say that the idea of “a friendship without limits” declared between Xi and Putin in 2022 is now old news, and that the partnership is pragmatic, not ideological.
Yet 2025 is not 1972. In that year, the USSR and China were in danger of going to war with each other, and had only the most rudimentary diplomatic relations. There wasn’t even a full Soviet ambassador in Beijing between 1964 and 1970. Nowadays, though, Xi and Putin seem to have worked out a genuinely cooperative relationship, and mistrust of Washington runs deep in both capitals. Even if Trump moves significantly closer to Russia in the next few years, analysts in Moscow and Beijing won’t forget that the next president might take exactly the opposite tack. Nor is it clear what material or strategic benefits would come to Russia if it turned its back on China. Falling out with the neighbours didn’t serve either Mao or Brezhnev well in the Sixties; Xi and Putin are unlikely to make the same mistake in the 2020s.
Another area of uncertainty is Taiwan. The pressure currently being placed on Ukraine to cede land to Russia is making some Taiwanese policymakers nervous — though they take heart from the fact that Trump’s national security team is full of China hawks, including Rubio and Waltz. Yet Trump’s Ukraine pivot won’t necessarily make a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely. An amphibious attack on the island would be difficult, regardless of policy in Washington. China’s other tactics may have a better chance of success, especially those of economic pressure, given 80% of the island’s firms are linked to the mainland, and social media disinformation, which could spread despondency about whether Taiwan can survive. The 2028 Taiwan presidential election campaign will see these tactics tested extensively.
For now, China’s policymakers have decided it’s better just to observe the Trump administration, rather than seek to influence it. But over time, as the new geopolitical landscape becomes clearer, the chance to shape “events not seen in a hundred years”, as Xi puts it, may become irresistible. Xi is referring here to the century since the Russian Revolution of 1917, which started the long breach between the US and China. As he bides his time, Xi will be calculating whether the new American Revolution provides an opportunity to reshape the global order in China’s interests — or even whether a grand bargain between the US and China might be on the horizon.
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Subscribethe reality the world should not be afraid of China, a country so massively inept, with a military that would make Russia’s look good
They build plenty ofbuilding’s, whole cities that 5 years after construction are falling apart, even their high speed is falling apart
Their education system once lauded, has been shown to be even worse than the what we have in the West, which takes some doing
the CCP does’nt do introspection , free speech, all their misteps compounded because no one will say , m8 your doing that wrong
Think of their total inability to take Taiwan a country of 22 million 100 miles away, but the total lack of gumpton , balls China has had over the issue
China relies on the West, to keep going, the West actually does’nt need China, we can make whatever they make, because most of it came from the West
However as a result of the Korean War we had to replace both the Bren Gun and Lee Enfield rifle with something that fired much faster in order to deal with the “fanatical hordes of Chinks who came at us”.*
Otherwise I could not agree more, the Chinese are the original ‘Paper Tiger’.
*Quote from the late Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mitchell.
Quote Confucious
” Always display humility openly
Whilst Hiding your Strengths
Which are reserved for those that
Choose to be your Foe ”
Quote Sun Tzu ( From the Art of War . Which actually is The Art of
Peace )
” Tis the most cleverest of Warriors
Who wins by merely placing their
Hand upon the Sword”
Both Confucious and Sun Zhu
Are deeply imbedded into Chinese
Thinking
Understand exactly what these Quotes encompass and you then
Comprehend the Modus Operandi
Of China
“Understand exactly what these Quotes encompass and you then
Comprehend the Modus Operandi
Of China“.
Which of course has been a catalogue of disasters from the very beginning to the very end. Even worse than wee Scotland, which is saying something is it not?
ps. Does Mrs Nicola Sturgeon’s, precipitate exit from Sc*tch politics herald her imminent arrest by Police Scotland? Some would say “ at long last” would they not Mr Doyle?
As at 1801 GMT, still in the ‘Sin Bin’ after 3 hours!
And who exactly have they defeated with these Arts of War ? Coming to a debatable draw with Vietnam, harassing the likes of the Philippines, and beating Indian soldiers with rocks and sticks?? Doesn’t sound too flash.
Sounds like America’s victories in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq…..
Exactly! We will just keep our heads under the sand!
Understand exactly what these Quotes encompass and you then
Comprehend the Modus Operandi
Of China“.
Which of course has been a catalogue of disasters from the very beginning to the very end. Even worse than wee Scotland, which is saying something is it not?
ps. Does Mrs Nicola Sturgeon’s, precipitate exit from Sc*tch politics herald her imminent arrest by Police Scotland? Some would say “ at long last” would they not Mr Doyle?
As at 1801 GMT, still in the ‘Sin Bin’ after 3 hours! No now 6 hours.
Only a few countries can be fully self sufficient without a very substantial fall in living standards. China isn’t one of them. The USA is.
Do you include stopping borrowing money from other countries and servicing and paying down the national debt in your definition of self sufficiency?
He’s probably factoring in that sinking a few bulk carriers carrying soy-bean, would remove pork from the Chinese diet in a few months.
the US owes nearly as much to the UK as it does China
from memory
Japan has around 1.1 Trillion of US debt
China 750 billion
UK 700 Billion
Look it up, China is 2nd to Japan, UK 3rd in who owns US Debt
Perhaps the US will default?
After all ‘we’ (UK) did in 1934 and we’re still here….just.
What was the inflation adjusted “debt per capita” and “Debt to GDP” difference between the UK in 34 and the US now?
Serious question.
I’m sorry but I haven’t a clue!
That wasn’t the question. But thanks for the breakdown.
USA has no significant Aluminium production capabilities and creating the cheap energy and, very importantly, the electricity infrastructure let alone the industrial infrastructure would take decades.
The main US refineries producing the vast percentage of petroleum are designed to use sand shale crude (something the US doesn’t have.) The only feeder crudes available are from Canada and Venezuela.
Again it would take decades to transition to alternatives.
A large proportion of US citizens rely on electricity produced in Ottawa through its Hydroelectric generation capabilities.
The US could replace that with their own hydro production but, again, it could take decades.
It’s not IF but how long it would take before wrecking the US economy and living standards.
China does indeed have its problems, but the author is correct that its reliance on US trade has fallen greatly since Trump 1.0.
Meanwhile Trump 2.0 is playing into their hands by tearing up alliances and even threatening America’s past friends such as Canada and Denmark – its not particularly fanciful to suppose that if the Chinese play their cards right, they can improve relations with Europe out of this.
So I’m not surprised he’s relatively popular over there at present – thus far the much lauded US pivot towards confronting China appears to be singularly ineffective, and although it can be argued (and I’m sure will be by the ‘five-dimensional chess’ mob) that these are only early days, it will not be easy to repair the damage Trump has done to the alliances he would have done well to retain if his real focus is China – not because they would necessarily have helped him a great deal, but because the end of them in acrimony, which he has already achieved, might end up actively helping his opponent.
I think the cultural revolution with the student uprisings peaked under Biden, and had roots in the Weather Underground. Trump is a counter-revolutionary. If China was a genuine friend, she would be a good one to have.
China certainly knows what to do with Maoists of the Weather Underground era. On the Shanghai Metro there are videos telling vicious 60 year olds who spent their teen years big-letter-posting and jetplaning their unfortunate teachers, not to bully other more genteel age groups.
China has been strategically positioning itself as the epicenter of global economics, while America has been preoccupied elsewhere. As @Brian Doyle notes below, read The Confucious. Read the Taoism, and The Art of War, and you will understand—they already have the system in place; they are simply waiting for us to cooperate. They control the labyrinth of supply chain! Not only in China but all its surroundings.
Now, let me show you the GDP of America’s neighboring countries. These nations are not industrialized, yet they have been stifled—held back by US to prevent them from ever becoming powerful. In contrast, if you examine the GDP of the countries surrounding China, the numbers speak for themselves.
South America GDP $4.1 trillion.North America (excluding US and Canada) GDP $1.78 trillionChina borders (water and land) GDP $8.4 trillion.By recognizing their shared border and aligned ideologies, Russia and China have come to understand that any instability or conflict between them would be mutually destructive.
Get ready, folks—in the next empire, we will be speaking Chinese.
China will be laughing as the US implodes under Trump, why say anything, just watch and wait.
“According to recent polling from the European Council on Foreign Relations, 34% of the Chinese public welcomed Trump”…
Only 34% when an important aspect of Chinese culture is an appreciation and attraction of a winner, of success and achievement. China is still very much a male dominated culture and the idea of having a woman as president would be total anathema. Doubtless a womaniser like Trump would also go down well with the younger male part of the population.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The woman president would however, have to possess sterling qualities to equip her for the job – so a template would be either the Empress Dowager or Madame Mao (1968 model).