China is testing Trump - and is prepared for all scenarios

Berliner Morgenpost China is testing Trump - and is prepared for all scenarios Michael Backfisch • 39 minutes • 5 minutes reading time When the Chinese leadership looks to Washington these days, it gets mixed messages. The new President Donald Trump initially tried to take a soft approach. Barely in office, he suspended the ban on the Chinese video platform TikTok imposed in America for 75 days. Shortly before his swearing-in, he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the phone. It was a "very good conversation," Trump announced afterwards. That sounded more like a possible deal between two XXL players in international politics, not a tariff cudgel and a trade war. A few days earlier, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio had fired verbal arrows at Beijing. The People's Republic is America's "most powerful and dangerous adversary," raged Rubio, known as a China hawk. In less than ten years, "practically everything" that is important to the USA in everyday life could depend on imports from the Far East - "from the medicine for high blood pressure that we take to the films that we get to watch," he warned. Donald Trump unpacks the torture instruments - but China can react In China, this is currently being observed closely, without being stuck on a narrative. "The Chinese leadership is waiting to see what will come from Washington. It is being examined: what are serious signals, what is just noise?" Janka Oertel, who heads the Asia program of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told our editorial team. Trump's harsh election campaign rhetoric has not been forgotten in the People's Republic. The Republican had threatened to impose punitive tariffs of at least 60 percent on all imports from China. The reason for this: America's trade deficit with China has grown to 361 billion dollars in 2024. Trump unpacked the torture instruments to force companies to produce in the United States. In his first term in office, he had already imposed duties on goods such as solar modules and washing machines from China - the Chinese then made it more expensive to import aircraft and soybeans from the USA. At the beginning of Trump's first term in office, the People's Republic was overwhelmed, Oertel emphasizes. "In the past eight years, China has done what the Europeans have not managed: it has prepared intensively for the first day of a second Trump term." Beijing has developed possible responses to possible tariffs and coercive measures from the Americans. "The Chinese government will not introduce such measures with a sledgehammer, but will calibrate them," emphasizes the China expert. Beijing has experience with trade retaliation. When the Americans imposed an export ban on high-quality semiconductor technology, China responded with export restrictions on gallium and germanium - materials that are important for the battery and chip industry. "The message: We can increase the pain for your politics and that of your allies and partners at possible key points. Pain points would also be restrictions on the delivery of Chinese products in the field of electronics or medicine - such as drones or antibiotics," explains Oertel. On the other hand, Beijing is able to react flexibly. "China could be willing to make deals to reduce America's massive trade deficit. The People's Republic would then buy more goods from the USA. However, much of the potential has already been exhausted, especially in the agricultural sector," says Oertel. According to China expert Klaus Larres from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, it is a carrot-and-stick tactic: "Xi Jinping will try to accommodate Trump a little - and if he does not respond accordingly, the Chinese will switch back to a hard line." One name that keeps coming up in Beijing is Elon Musk. The Trump advisor and tech entrepreneur, who has electric cars manufactured in Shanghai for his company Tesla, could act as a bridge builder to the White House, it is said. But Musk symbolizes the ambiguity of the Chinese-American relationship like no other. "For Musk, China is both a partner and an extreme competitor," says Oertel. Beijing knows that an uncontrolled trade war could damage its own export machinery. China's companies are currently in difficult waters. According to the Beijing Statistics Office, the economy grew by five percent in 2024. However, Western experts believe this is an exaggerated figure. China's economy is stagnating - also due to the real estate crisis The fact is that the People's Republic is suffering from structural problems. Domestic consumption is stagnating. Real estate prices plummeted because the financial difficulties of the major developers stalled a number of construction projects.