One of the people said Communist propaganda officials played a leading role in building China’s response, with a government spokesperson posting provocative clips on social media, in which former leader Mao Zedong said: “We will never succumb”.
The details of Reuters’ first report, as part of the “wartime” posture, were in detail that the bureaucrats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commerce were ordered to cancel vacation plans and to have their phones turn on 24/7, two people said. They said departments covering the U.S. have also been strengthened, including officials with Chinese responses to Trump’s first term.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” Salvo After Beijing’s “Liberation Day”, the full-government approach to combat effectiveness marked a difficult transformation in Beijing, which tried to avoid a booming trade war. For months, Chinese diplomats have tried to build high-level communication channels with the Trump administration to defend what the Chinese cabinet described in state media movements as a “win-win” trade relationship.
Optimistic Chinese observers even have hope for Trump’s big bargaining on trade, Tiktok, and even Taiwan.
The claim about how China has shifted from seeking a deal to resurgent tariffs to resurgent tariffs is based on interviews with more than a dozen people, including U.S. and Chinese government officials, as well as other diplomats and other diplomats and scholars about bilateral exchanges. Four of them also describe how Beijing’s diplomats interact with other governments related to Trump’s tariffs, including sending letters of cooperation to several countries. The two said they also contacted long-standing allies in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Most people speak on anonymous condition to describe the government’s confidential deliberations.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not return a request for comment. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in response to Reuters’ question that Beijing does not want to fight a trade war.
“If the United States places its own interests in the public interest of the international community and sacrifices the legitimate interests of all countries for its hegemony, it will certainly encounter strong opposition from the international community,” the official said.
The embassies of South Korea and Japan in Washington did not immediately respond to requests to comment on talks between their country and China.
After the initial revenge of China, Trump said: “China made a mistake, they were panicked – one thing they couldn’t afford!” He also suggested that Beijing wanted to reach an agreement, but “they just didn’t know what to do.”
U.S. officials also accused China of being in a deadlock because its trillion-dollar trade surplus with the world is the result of abuse of global business systems that they believe were successfully resolved through years of negotiations.
Trump shocked the world with massive tariffs on April 2, saying countries like China “deprived” U.S. Chinese leader Xi Jinping of official caution and sent a patriotic message on whether American voters can bear the difficulties of the Chinese.
Since then, the levy on the “Liberation Day” has been suspended for 90 days in all countries except China. With some exceptions, now trade in goods between China and the United States has largely come true, with Beijing starting to crack down on trade in services, while warning its citizens not to travel to the United States and limiting restrictions on the import of American movies.
Courteous start and fast stall
Even after Trump was elected for his promise of high tariffs, relations with Beijing started politely. Trump invited Xi Jinping’s inauguration ceremony, which was eventually attended by Chinese Vice President Han En.
Soon after, things started to get worse.
During the first Trump administration, Beijing had several high-level communication channels, most notably between then-Babasad Tiankai and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
A Beijing official familiar with Central American relations said there was no equivalent channel this time, adding that China is not sure who is speaking for Trump.
In response to Reuters’ questions, Trump administration officials said that the United States has made it clear to China that we hope that work-level ties will continue…but will not participate in the purpose of engagement and have conducted dialogues that do not improve American interests. ”
An American scholar said that the Chinese ambassador to the US West Sea made an unsuccessful attempt before the election to reach Trump’s billionaire Ally Elon Musk.
Musk did not immediately return the request for comment.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tried to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Beijing-approved Chinese eagle who visited New York’s presidential United Nations meeting in February but did not secure the meeting. Except in late January, there was no publicly disclosed exchange between the top diplomats on both sides.
A familiar with the matter said Wang was also unsuccessful when he met with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Wang gave many speeches with Waltz’s predecessor, Jake Sullivan, including those that led to rare prisoner exchanges.
According to people familiar with the matter, the White House believes that China should send a senior trade official instead of Wang making a statement on business matters.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he “does not interact with China” and that Trump wants to negotiate directly with XI.
Trump told reporters this week that he would like to see XI, and he also described it as a friend. He did not give any details of the possible deal.
Trump administration officials said the United States has repeatedly asked Chinese diplomat Xi Jinping if he would call Trump, “The answer has always been ‘no.”
International relations expert Zhao Minghao said at Fudan University in Shanghai that such propaganda “has worked entirely in China’s decision-making system.”
“For the Chinese side, there is usually a consensus and work level, and then we can arrange the summit.”
“So far this year, countries trying to negotiate have accepted the way of negotiations and certainly haven’t done much to encourage China to sit at the table.”
According to one Chinese and three U.S. officials, some ongoing dialogue was held between low-level officials on both sides, despite the Joe Biden administration’s task force to deal with business disputes, as well as financial and military issues.
Lessons learned
Although many countries were hit by U.S. tariffs for the first time this month, China honed its response in the previous Central American trade war.
In Trump’s first semester course, China created a retaliatory script that included tariffs and restrictions on about 60 U.S. companies and restricted the export of rare earths.
The effort was prepared for weeks by Chinese government officials, whose mission was to study Trump’s policies and propose countermeasures that could gradually scale up, according to two familiar people.
Xi Jinping chose a strong response, hitting the full tax even before the Trump-announced tariffs took effect. The responsibility was announced shortly before Wall Street opened on April 4 – a public holiday in China. U.S. stocks fell sharply.
A Chinese official briefly introduced the deliberation, describing the unusually quick response as similar to the decisions made by Covid Pandemic-the Decistion, which were made without the customary signatures of all relevant departments.
Some Chinese opinion leaders seem to suggest off-road vehicles in the trade war.
Political blogger Ren Yi has nearly 2 million followers on the Weibo Microblogging platform in an April 8 article, saying, “There is no need for a wide range of tariffs on U.S. goods.”
Ren’s father, a well-known reformist leader in the 1980s, suggested targeted moves such as shutdowns on fentanyl cooperation and further restrictions on agricultural imports and films.
China’s Treasury Department said on Friday that it will stop tariffs on Washington’s future hiking duties as it now has 125% tariffs on U.S. goods.
“Never surrender”
According to two Beijing-based diplomats, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has called many of its overseas missions back to Beijing for a special meeting to coordinate the response.
China has also sent formal letters to government officials in other countries where Trump has put pressure on them to conduct trade negotiations.
The letters, described by four people familiar with their content, outlined China’s position and the need to stand together with multipolarity and nations. Message also includes criticism of U.S. policies that respond to China’s public statements.
EU diplomats told Reuters that China has worded with some community governments to provide common declaration support for the multilateral trading system.
But diplomats say the message has not addressed the non-U.S. government concerns about China’s overcapacity, its subsidized regime and so-called unfair competition.
Beijing said these concerns were exaggerated, and its high-tech industry rose due to its comparative advantages and benefits.
China is also very focused on domestic reactions to tariffs, with social media users widely republishing the official daily warnings of panic in an April 7 editorial.
China has also recently begun to encourage families to spend more and has greatly changed its language about domestic consumption. Beijing’s goal is to transfer the growth engine from exports to consumers when the economy is plagued by the crisis of failed real estate development.
Zhao from Fudan University said: “The real battlefield is on the domestic front, not bilateral negotiations.”
Chinese officials also delivered clips of Chairman Mao on Musk’s X platform, giving a speech in 1953 – the last time the United States and China were directly in a military conflict during the Korean War.
In the clip, Mao Zedong’s eldest son died in the war, and he said peace depends on the Americans.
“No matter how long this war will last, we will never surrender,” he said. “We will fight until we are completely victorious.”
