Why China Won’t Give In to Trump

9 comments

1. Michael Schuman: “On Tuesday, President Donald Trump bragged that many foreign leaders were ‘kissing his ass’ to avoid the steep tariffs he’d imposed on their countries. But China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was not one of them. ‘We are waiting for their call,’ Trump said of China’s leadership in a social-media post.

   “He might be waiting for a while. Xi became China’s most powerful political figure in half a century by promoting a new Chinese nationalism—not by kowtowing to anyone, least of all the president of the United States.

   “‘Seeking to negotiate on U.S. terms would be deeply embarrassing for Xi and could potentially weaken his standing and even control over the Communist Party and the country,’ Steve Tsang, the director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, told me. That’s because the party justifies Xi’s dictatorship by portraying him as the ultimate defender of the Chinese people—the man who will restore China’s past glory and attain the ‘Chinese dream’ of national rejuvenation. He must be seen standing up to foreign oppressors who seek to humiliate China and thwart its rightful rise.

   “… The Chinese Communist Party is characterizing Trump’s trade war as an American effort to contain and suppress China’s economic success—one the government is fully prepared to thwart, according to one commentary in the People’s Daily. This framing commits Beijing to holding out, because the alternative is for a party that predicates its power on the projection of strength to appear to be capitulating to a hostile onslaught.

   “Trump and his team do not seem to understand Xi’s political realities. They seem to believe that if they keep turning up the pressure, Xi will eventually come to heel … But China has leverage in this relationship, too. American companies and consumers rely on Chinese imports. 

   “… Eventually, Trump and Xi may find their way to the negotiating table. But that will happen only if Xi can appear at least the equal of Trump, if not the man in control. Trump’s approach so far doesn’t invite this outcome. His tariff scheme seems to have degenerated from a program to restore American manufacturing to little more than a form of blackmail to extort concessions from U.S. trading partners—in the process allowing Trump to present himself as a powerful leader whose ass is getting kissed.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/AmkggoWH](https://theatln.tc/AmkggoWH) 

2. Trump’s political mistake is he tariffed the entire world then rolled it back then cranked up tariffs on China to the max .

   Global perception views the US as the belligerent for attacking the global economic order without reason. China has the backing of the entire global population. With one colossal mistake, the world has forgotten that China is the enemy and shifted the world’s ire to the US instead.

   China will win not only because it is the factory of the world but more importantly it was handed a massive soft power boost it has forever craved but has failed to achieve until Trump handed it to Xi on a silver platter.

   US is not just fighting a trade war with China. The entire world is chipping in boycotting its products when able even its once sought after treasury bonds.

3. [deleted]

4. This is exactly what people said during Trump 1.0, and you can say you think the resulting deal wasn’t great, but China did agree to a deal.

5. It’s so sad that Trump is getting off to the idea of using tariffs to bully other countries into assuaging his ego. He also doesn’t seem to understand how sad it is that it actually works. He is proud of the idea that other leaders are sucking up to him to get diplomatic results that benefit them instead of realizing it makes him a shitty diplomat that is easy to play. And he is sacrificing the entire country’s position in the world just to get that self-centered gratification and it’s sad there are so many people happy to support him in doing so.

   Of course China won’t back down, this is a wonderful opportunity for them. They were perpetually stuck fighting as the “bad guy” in international perception. They still got things done, but they were always on the back foot. Having the US instantly switched from presenting themselves as the adult in the room (True or not) to presenting themselves as a playground bully gives China room to potentially change their reputation AND rally the rest of the world against the sad little bully.

   This complete abandonment of understanding soft power and a laser focus on dollars and cents as if geopolitics were zero-sum is truly the end of American hegemony.

6. Xi is a calm and patient competent leader, trump is akin to a mentally disabled squirrel on meth who has an attention span of less than 30 seconds.

   I apologize and retract my previous statement if it is not considered proper decorum. However, I felt it was an apt assessment.

   China holds all the cards in this trade war.

   They own us debt (a lot) in the form of treasury bonds that they can flood the market with, devaluing and weakening the us dollar, raising interest rates (making us debt more expensive), not to mention the negative effect on the us consumers addiction to cheap Chinese goods via Walmart and Amazon et al. We haven’t even touched on the billion dollar gaming industry that relies on computer components that are now prohibitably expensive for us consumers.

   This is the tipping point.

   Couple that with the fact, that Carney just met with uk, European, and Japanese leaders in order to form an alliance against this unprovoked us aggression, putting further pressure onto the us.

   If china and Canada, along with the uk, Europe, and Japan, Luxembourg all start selling their bonds…

   Tariffs and trump, will be the least of their worries.

   The us is circling the drain, I hope it doesn’t take us with it.

7. Dictators Trap

8. Xi can withstand 4 years of Tariffs, he has been leader of China for a decade+ and has been pulling strings for much longer, while China experienced drastic improvement in finances and quality of life, ultimately the Chinese people trust him. Our system is fundamentally different, no leader has ruled for as long and we are a highly developed nation, it will cost the republicans.

   Plus Trump blanket tariffs will make Europe, South America, Africa and Asia look to do more favorable business with China to ice out the US, who they will see as an unreliable partner. We have already seen movement on this front. Trump shot us in the foot imo.

9. Trump and Xi both bully other countries. I get the hate for Trump and it’s definitely justified but so many people are making China seem like a victim when they’re far from that.

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