Xi’s real test is not Trump’s trade war

If you say Donald Trump name in the wholesale markets and business fairs halls in China, you will hear an unconscious chakli.

The US President and his 145% tariff have not created fear among many Chinese traders.

Instead, he has inspired an army of online Chinese nationalists to create a mocking meme in a series of viral videos and reels-some of which include an AI-Janit President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Tech Mogul Elon Musk on shoes and iPhone assembly lines.

China is not behaving like a nation facing the possibility of economic pain and President Xi Jinping has made it clear that Beijing will not return.

He said, “For more than 70 years, China has always trusted hard work for self -reliance and development … It never trusts someone’s gifts and is oblivious to any inappropriate repression,” he said this month.

Their confidence may come into part because China is much less dependent on exports to the US 10 years ago. But the truth is that Trump’s brinkmship and tariff hike are emphasizing hike pressure points that are already within China’s own struggling economy. With a housing crisis, the increase in job insecurity and an aging population, Chinese people are not just spending as much as their government would like.

Xi came to power in 2012 with the dream of China. Now it is being seriously tested – and not only by American tariffs. Now, the question is whether Trump’s tariffs will reduce Xi’s economic dreams or not, or can they change the obstacles that are present in opportunities?

With a population of 1.4 billion, China is in principle, a huge domestic market. But there is a problem. They do not appear to be ready to spend money while the country’s economic approach is uncertain.

This trade has been inspired not by war but by the collapse of the housing market. Many Chinese families invested their lives in their homes, only to see the fall in prices in the last five years.

Construction of housing developers continued as the property market declined. It is thought that the entire population of China will not fill all empty apartments across the country.

Former Deputy Chief of China’s Statistics Bureau, Keng, he admitted two years ago that the most “extreme estimate” is now that there are now adequate vacant houses for 3 billion people.

Travel to Chinese provinces and you see that they are adopted by empty projects – the lines of concrete shells labeling “ghost cities”. Other people have been fitted, gardens are landscape, curtains frame windows, and they appear to be full of a new home promise. But only at night, when you do not see any light, can you tell that apartments are empty. There are just not enough buyers to match this level of construction.

The government worked five years ago to borrow the amount of developers. According to a Reuters Poll in February, consumer confidence has been damaged in China and in turn, and analysts have estimated a 2.5% decline in house prices this year.

And these are not just home prices that worry about middle class Chinese families.

They are worried about whether the government can give them pension – in the next decade, around 300 million people, who are currently aged 50 to 60, are ready to leave the Chinese workforce. According to the 2019 estimate by the state -run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government pension fund can be out of money by 2035.

It is also feared whether their sons, daughters and grandchildren can get jobs because millions of college graduates are struggling to find work. According to official data published in August 2023, more than one in five people in urban areas between the ages of 16 and 24 are unemployed in China. The government has not released young unemployment figures since then.

The problem is that China can not only flip the switch and take local buyers from selling goods in the US to sell.

“Given the pressure on the economy downwards, it is unlikely that domestic expenses can be greatly expanded in a short term,” says Prof. Huhuua of Rainmin University.

“It will take time to change exports with internal demand.”

According to Prof. Jhao Minghao, Deputy Director, Center for American Studies at Foodon University, “China has no high expectations for interaction with the Trump administration … The actual battleground is in the adjustment of China’s domestic policies, such as promoting domestic demand.”

To revive a slow economy, the government has announced billions in childcare subsidy, increasing wages and better payments holidays. It has also introduced a $ 41BN program offering discounts on items such as consumer electronics and electronic vehicles (EVS) to encourage more people to spend. But Dean Professor Zhang June at Foodon University believes that it is not “durable”.

“We need a long -term mechanism,” they say. “We need to start an increase in disposable income of residents.”

This is essential for XI. When he took power 13 years ago, the dream of prosperity did not become a reality.

Xi also knows that China has a disappointed young generation who is worried about her future. This can be a great problem for the Communist Party: protest or disturbance.

In a report by the China Decent Monitor of Freedom House, claims claim that the protests conducted by financial complaints have seen a huge increase in the last few months.

All protests are quickly subdued on social media, so it is unlikely to pose a real threat to Xi for now.

“Only when the country does good and the nation does good, every person can do well,” Xi said in 2012.

This promise was made when China’s economic growth looked invincible. It looks uncertain now.

Where the country has made heavy progress over the last decade, it is as part of a axis for advanced manufacturing in areas such as consumer electronics, batteries, EVS and artificial intelligence.

It has rivals US Tech Dominance with chatboats Deepsek and Beddi, who became the world’s largest EV producer by defeating Tesla last year.

Nevertheless, Trump’s tariff threatened to throw a spanner in the tasks.

For example, the ban on the sale of major chips for China, including the most recent move from the US chip giant Nvidia, is aimed at curbing Xi’s ambitions for technical domination.

Despite this, Xi knows that the Chinese manufacturers are at a decades-levied profit, so that American manufacturers are struggling to find the same scale of infrastructure and efficient labor.

President Xi has been trying to find a more new markets as a catalyst to change this crisis and for China.

“In short term, some Chinese exporters will be greatly affected,” says Pro Zhang. “But Chinese companies will take initiative to accommodate the destination of export to overcome difficulties. Exporters are waiting and looking for new customers.”

Donald Trump’s first term in the office was China’s cue to see elsewhere for buyers. This has expanded its relations in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa-and a belt and road trade and infrastructure initiative created relations with the so-called global South.

China is receiving the award from that diversification. According to the Lovi Institute, more than 145 countries do more trade with the US with China.

In 2001, only 30 countries chose Beijing as their leading trade partner over Washington.

As Trump targets both friends and enemies, some believe that Xi may pursue the current American -led world system and portray his country as a stable, alternative global business partner and leader.

The Chinese leader chose South East Asia for his first visit after the announcement of the tariff, felt about being worried about Trump’s tariff to his neighbors.

About one -fourth of Chinese exports are now manufactured or sent through another country including Vietnam and Cambodia.

In recent American works, Xi may also be offered a chance to positively shape China’s role in the world.

“Trump’s tremendous tariff policy is an opportunity for Chinese diplomacy,” says Pro Zhang.

China will have to walk carefully. Some countries will panic that products manufactured for the US can eliminate floods in their markets.

In 2016, Trump’s Tariff sent a glow of cheap Chinese imports, which originally hurts many local manufacturers for the US, in Southeast Asia.

According to Professor Huhua, “About 20% of China’s exports go to the US – if these exports are for floods in any regional market or country, it can lead to dumping and vicious competition, which can lead to new business friction”.

There are obstacles for Xi to present themselves as arbiter of free trade in the world.

China has traded other countries for restrictions in recent years.

In 2020, the Australian government called for a global examination of the origin of the Kovid epidemic and the initial handling, which Beijing argued that there was a political maneuver against him, China kept tariffs on Australian liquor and barley and some beef and wood and banquet put biosity measures on coal, cotton and lustster. Some Australian exports of some goods to China became almost zero.

Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marls said earlier this month that his nation would “be able to hold China’s hand” as Washington carried forward his trade war with Beijing.

China’s previous tasks can disrupt Xi’s current global outreach and many countries may not be ready to choose between Beijing and Washington.

Even with all various difficulties, Xi is betting that Beijing will be able to withstand any economic pain for a long time in this great power competition compared to Washington.

And it appears that Trump has taken a nap first, pointing to a possible U-turn on the tariff last week, saying that the taxes levied so far on the sugar imports will “be reduced significantly, but it will not be zero”.

Meanwhile, Chinese social media is in back action.

After softening his approach to Tariff, the US President was one of the top trending search disciplines on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, “Trump is taken out by Trump.

Even if or when there is talks, China is playing a long game.

The final trade war forced it to diversify its export market from America to other markets – especially the global south.

This trade war has seen China in the mirror to see its own flaws – and can it cure them, will be the policies made in Beijing, not Washington.

Top Picture Credit: Getty Images

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