But despite looming economic pain, China is not backing down or making concessions to Trump.
If anything, the government appears more defiant than ever, especially after some political narratives about the country’s manufacturing strength have started to shift in recent years.
In the long run, in fact, an escalating battle with the US could wind up being an opportunity for China to leverage its growing soft power.
“If the US is determined to fight a tariff and trade war, China’s response will continue to the end,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, said in a statement to WIRED.
The US previously justified its punitive trade measures against China by citing the country’s troubling human rights record and accusing it of repeatedly stealing American intellectual property.
The Trump administration’s alleged human rights abuses, meanwhile, are alarming civil liberties groups and observers around the world.
“America is fighting a trade war while begging for eggs,” read one particularly popular hashtag coined by China’s state broadcaster. »
