Kevin Chen
SINGAPORE: You don’t have to be an expert in international security to see that China is currently emboldened on the world stage.
And to be fair, it has good reason to be confident, especially after United States President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea last week and reached a trade deal.
Compared to the 2018 trade war during Mr Trump’s first term, Beijing is much better prepared to deal with the US this time. It fortified its economy and identified points it could use for leverage. Instead of skirmishing with tariffs and counter-tariffs, China went for what one scholar called the “nuclear” option.
In the lead-up to the meeting in South Korea, China instituted sweeping export controls over rare earths. And it worked, paving the way for a deal where it gained concessions on key tariffs and export restrictions.
This playbook is strongly influenced by the belief among Chinese leaders that they understand Mr Trump and know how to deal with him. To them, Mr Trump is not a natural China hawk, his policies are not rooted in ideologies beyond a preference for tariffs, and he is open to trading strategic concessions for non-strategic incentives.
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