Tong Zhao
In 2021, at the contentious first meeting between senior Chinese foreign policy officials and their counterparts in the Biden administration, Beijing’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, declared that the United States could no longer “speak with China from a position of strength.” The statement, which seemed to unsettle U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, has proved instructive for understanding China’s strategic outlook. In the four years since, Beijing has operated under the assumption that a profound shift in the balance of power between the two countries is underway. Chinese strategists perceive their country’s decades-long “strategic weakness” in its competition with the United States as coming to an end, driven by steady advances in China’s industrial, technological, and military capabilities and an increase in its international influence. This progress has ushered in what Beijing views as a “strategic stalemate” with the United States, in which both nations now wield comparable power.
The reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump did little to shake Beijing’s optimism that it can navigate continued threats from the United States, secure a lasting equilibrium, and vie for global supremacy. And Trump’s early second-term actions have strengthened Beijing’s conviction that the United States is accelerating its own decline, bringing a new era of parity ever closer. The perception that China likely does not face an existential threat from the United States has had a stabilizing effect on policy in Beijing, which has responded to Trump’s escalation of trade tensions in April with patience, anticipating that Trump will eventually lower U.S. tariffs in an attempt to reach an agreement.
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