Chinese strategy challenges American global power

Tariffs, restrictions and technology did not overthrow Beijing, which diversified markets and protected his economy from external surprises

While the United States believes that the dynamics of its economy gives them a advantage in a free -trade world, China has prepared itself meticulously for the new global reality. Decades of strategic planning have allowed the country to build a resistant economy, capable of facing external challenges that Washington still treats as surprises.

Under the administration of President Donald Trump, the United States launched a series of multifaceted attacks on the Chinese economy, from heavy tariffs to restrictions on access to advanced technologies. But, as they observe experts, “since the government of President Mao Zedong, China has anticipated it.” The American opening and interdependence -based American system clashes with the Chinese counterpart, erected as a control fortress. Both sides have powerful resources – but only one has prepared for this dispute over decades.

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Since the beginning of Trump’s first term in 2017, the American stance on China has changed radically. Which began as a constructive but cautious engagement evolved into intense rivalry, bordering on the declared hostility. Chinese exports to the US face tariffs that reach almost 40%. The supply of state -of -the -art semiconductors for Chinese technology companies has been restricted. Chinese students from areas such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, once welcome in American universities laboratories, were searched at the border. Even apps like Tiktok, controlled by Bytedance Ltd., were threatened with suspension in the US market.

In Washington, Beijing is expected to be under pressure. China is assumed, dependent on American clients and technologies, will eventually give in. The logic seems simple: it’s just a matter of time until President Xi Jinping calls the White House and admits the defeat.

But reality shows another story. It is true that the changes promoted by Trump complicate Beijing’s life. Bloomberg Economics estimates indicate that current rates could eliminate more than 50% of Chinese US sales. However, Chinese exports to the US market today represent about 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), well below the 7% peak recorded two decades ago. This reduction is the result of a deliberate campaign of economic diversification, as planned as US efforts to reduce the dependence on Chinese supply chains. Consequently, even if half of exports to the United States is cut, the impact on the Chinese economy would be only 1.5% of GDP – a challenge, but far from being a disaster.

For the US, the scenario is no less worrying. The trade war is not restricted to China, but involves several business partners. Bloomberg Economics models project that the impact on the American economy can reach 1.6% of GDP, reflecting increases in import prices and delays in supply chains.

The Chinese response to American efforts is also effective. Advanced Deepseek performance, the Chinese version of ChatgPT, demonstrates the ability of its programmers to circumvent semiconductor supply restrictions. In addition, the control of rare land elements – essential for industrial and defense sectors – gives China a powerful negotiation weapon. This feature was used in conversations with the US in Geneva and London, ensuring important concessions during negotiations.

The result is clear: even after almost a decade of American attempts to contain Chinese industrial advancement, China’s participation in global exports remains high. The lesson is that the Asian country not only survived external pressures, but also strengthened its ability to face economic and technological crises. For the United States, the experience leaves an evident message: in a globalized world, economic strength and strategic preparation walks side by side, and underestimate opposing planning can be expensive.

Why does China demonstrate so much resilience? The answer is rooted in more than a century of history, since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, through the brief period of the Republic, the turbulent years of Maoism, and even the era of reforms: there has always been a conductive thread – the strategic preparation for facing external adversities and consolidating their sovereignty.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after successive humiliations by foreign invaders, Chinese thinkers turned to the concept of “self-power” through modernization. An emblematic example is Yan Fu, born in 1854 and formed by the British Naval Academy, who translated works by Western academics such as Thomas Huxley and Adam Smith. It was from Huxley that Yan Fu brought to Chinese thought the idea of “survival of the fittest”, emphasizing that nations, like species, needed to strengthen themselves continuously to avoid being dominated by more powerful rivals.

Decades later, in the 1930s, the country dived into internal conflicts between the Mao’s communists and Chiang Kai-Shek nationalists. Mao promised resistance against the Japanese invaders and advocated the construction of a more egalitarian society – messages that resonated deeply in the collective imagination. Upon reaching power in 1949, Mao implemented a forced march towards industrialization, which cost the lives of millions of Chinese. The way was tortuous, but the goal was clear: to ward off external threats. “American imperialists have always wanted to destroy us,” he warned.

With the death of Mao in 1976, China entered the age of reforms. The objective of self-strongness remained, but the strategies to achieve it were enhanced. In the 1980s and 1990s, academics such as He Xin, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, warned that China’s growth would cause reactions from developed countries, which would try to contain it. The answer, according to He, was clear: to build an self -sufficient industrial system to reduce vulnerabilities. As he said, “A nation that does not have its own switching equipment is like one that does not have its own army.”

He Xin’s thought influenced generations of planners. In 1983, Deng Xiaoping launched the state high -tech development plan, seeking to reduce the delay in the United States in sectors such as Information Technology and Automation. In 1994, Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei, reinforced the logic of industrial self -sufficiency by declaring the then President Jiang Zemin that it depends on foreign equipment was equivalent to having no national defense.

In the 2000s, under Hu Jintao, China advanced in “local innovation” to absorb foreign technologies and raised a “large wall of fire” to limit Western influence. Companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter were effectively deleted, creating space for the emergence of local giants like Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba.

With Xi Jinping since 2013, the Chinese strategy has become even more ambitious. The “Made in China 2025” plan has not only sought self -sufficiency but also global technology, robotics, high -speed trains and electric vehicles. The “belt and route” initiative diversified markets and reduced American dependence while expanding the influence of China through investments in ports, railways and highways. Although not all plans were totally successful, there were concrete achievements, such as increasing exports of electric vehicles and solar panels, as well as strengthening ties with other emerging markets.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the post-war foreign policy was marked by excessive trust in the triumph of democracy and capitalism. The collapse of the Soviet Union fueled the belief that authoritarianism was declining. President Bill Clinton saw China’s adhesion to the World Trade Organization as a chance to “create positive social change in China since the 1970s”. His successors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, kept this line of engagement.

American multinationals took advantage of access to the Chinese market and low -cost factories, signing joint ventures with local companies, opening thousands of stores and taking advantage of the immense potential consumer. In return, strategic sectors such as energy and steel remained carefully protected, limiting foreign influence on the most sensitive areas of the economy. This ambiguous relationship has prepared the ground for China to consolidate its technological and industrial autonomy – a lesson that the US is just beginning to understand in its current trade war.

In a free trade and open competition world, the agility and dynamism of the American economy have always been seen as its greatest advantage. Already in China’s most controlled and planned universe, the cost of protectionism and state intervention is palpable, but strategic benefits – especially in terms of self -sufficiency and resilience – are equally evident.

The theory of “second best,” formulated by economists Richard Lipsey and Kelvin Lancaster in 1956, helps explain this dynamic. She suggests that when one of the conditions for perfect markets does not exist, simply keeping others intact, without adaptation, it can make the results worse. Chinese planners have spent decades improving instruments and strategies to operate in a better world; American leaders, to this day, lack an equivalent approach.

This does not mean that the United States are completely defenseless. Control on state -of -the -art technology and intellectual property, coupled with the largest consumer market on the planet, offers Washington power to apply painful measures to China. Billionaire investments from companies such as Apple Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. show that some Trump attempts to repact manufacturing have effect. As free market democracy, the US also has the flexibility to correct economic routes faster than China’s single party rigid system.

However, the Chinese internal scenario adds complexity. The retraction real estate market, industrial overcapacity and record levels of indebtedness make the country vulnerable – but not fragile to the point of being defeated only by tariffs. The situation is complicated with actions of economic allies: the European Union, adopting its own protectionist measures, applied rates on Chinese electric vehicles. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned that China would be “flooding global markets with cheap and subsidized products to eliminate competitors,” echoing, with diplomatic formality, Trump’s speech.

In the midst of this scenario, Trump recognized the limits of the American approach. “I don’t blame China,” he said shortly after announcing his fares in April. “I blame the people who were sitting at that table in that beautiful oval hall for allowing it to happen.” Their measures may even fail: Fees and Restrictions can harm more silicon valley companies than Chinese manufacturers in Shenzhen. But in the diagnosis of the problem, Trump gets it right: the US believed that free trade would transform Chinese leaders-and in practice they ended up strengthening them.

The result is a difficult transition to the United States, which now face a more prepared, strategic and resilient China than they have ever imagined. Meanwhile, Beijing notes, not only reacting, but taking every opportunity to move toward a position of global leadership, the result of decades of silent planning and historical perseverance.

With information from Bloomberg*