Will Trump's tariffs strengthen China?
China retaliated on Friday against Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs by imposing 34 percent import duties on US goods and restrictions on rare earth exports. Prices on the Japanese and Chinese stock markets dropped by around 8 percent this Monday in response. As markets around the world panic, commentators discuss how China can reposition itself in the escalating global trade war.
Pacific alliance against Bejing crumbling
Traditional allies of the US in the region can no longer rely on Washington's backing, laments the Financial Times:
“The likes of Japan, South Korea and Australia have been prepared to work with the US to contain and manage Chinese power because they believed that, in the last resort, the US would fight to defend them. But Trump's transactional, unpredictable and increasingly hostile actions are destroying that trust. America's alliance system will also now come under huge strain - to the benefit of China. The US president has profoundly changed the Republican party and the image of America itself. In a matter of days he has undone trusted global relationships that have taken decades to build.”
Taiwan losing reliable protector
The government in Bejing has less reason than ever to fear US intervention in theconflict over Taiwan, The Irish Times observes:
“Critics of the US administration warn that its policy of 'strategic ambiguity' in defence of Taiwan, an unwillingness to say what it would do if China invades, may under President Trump, be emboldening Beijing. ... Trump's toleration of the idea that great powers should be given free rein in their own zones of influence, reflected in his own designs on Greenland, Panama and Canada, sends out not just a message of strategic realignment by the US but also one of weakness to Beijing.”
Opportunity in chaos
China can benefit, predicts Avvenire:
“A similar alternative is opening up for Bejing as it is for Europe: bow to the new 'world disorder' and follow its rules or take appropriate steps to oppose it. Nothing can ever be the same again, but Beijing wants to oppose protectionism and defend a globalisation that is very much aligned with Chinese interests. ... The aim is to attract foreign investment (which has been declining for years) and to encourage anti-protectionist pressure from foreign companies on their governments. China is even managing to forge free trade relations with US political-military allies Japan and South Korea.”
Disruption is a risky bet
Trump's politics could leave China with the upper hand, France Inter warns:
“The nature of disruption is to break existing structures in order to transform the old world. ... This is what Donald Trump is trying to do in his highly incendiary manner. Of course this carries the risk of achieving the opposite of the desired results: weakening America to the benefit of its rivals.... The risk today is that China and the emerging nations will be pushed to break away and develop an alternative system decoupled from the US. This is already happening in technology. The world will not get better like this, nor will it 'make America great again'. Disruption does not always work, it's a gamble - and potentially an existential one.”