Josef Gregory MahoneyHow should we understand the widely reported statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson: “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
Many have interpreted this as an escalation in the war of words, from the Chinese side at least. It strikes an ominous chord insomuch as rarely do we hear such a direct statement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly, one that is then repeated in various official social media accounts around the world.
In short, this isn’t the sort of bravado we often hear from the Ministry of Defence, Global Times, or one of the so-called “wolf warrior” diplomats who either go off message or do so as directed with some distance from the centre.
Furthermore, it’s especially striking because in the last few months leading up to the US election, official statements from China as well as reporting in state media have treated Washington with kid gloves, waiting to see what path Donald Trump wanted to take without getting sucked into some downward spiral of tit-for-tat, which Trump typically adores.
Now, as it’s clear the new US administration is moving rather aggressively against China, this new direct statement is a signal that the gloves are off, discursively speaking at least.
We might also wonder whether this marks a pivot in Beijing, one that is preparing for a phase of more direct confrontation with the US. If American disengagement from Ukraine finally clears the path for Washington to direct its full attention against China, as some speculate, then now is the time for Beijing to stand unambiguously firm, even to the point of saying it’s ready for war should the US provoke it.
On the one hand, such a stance is consistent with Beijing’s assertion that in this new era, China has returned to the centre of the world stage as a major power, one that is already constructively realising the emergence of a multipolar world.
On the other hand, Trump has demonstrated on a number of occasions the value of caution when it comes to dealing with Russia, repeatedly raising the spectre of a possible third world war should the relationship be mishandled.
This provides an important context as Trump moves to resolve President Joe Biden’s war against Russia: US leaders promised a Russian defeat and the destruction of the Russian economy. Yet, here we are today, a US president likely to negotiate terms that confirm Russian victory, and do so without his allies or even Ukraine at the table.
As the US falls behind in the growing trade war, President-elect Trump has thrown down the gauntlet at the Asian giant. But can there be a winner in this war?
The lesson for China is quite clear: if Trump fears a wider war with Russia, if Russia stood strong against NATO, against Ukraine, Europe and the US, and did so with its economy withstanding devastating attacks, then China, as a much stronger country than Russia both economically and militarily, should likewise stand its ground no less firmly, and all the more so if the Trump administration is ready to test China’s resolve.
Last year, there was a quiet consensus in Beijing that a second Trump presidency would favour China’s interests. To be sure, there were those who were worried that resolving the conflict in Ukraine would free Washington to focus more on China. But one can argue that the US exploited that conflict to spoil China’s relations with Europe.
In the meantime, the Biden administration was not slowed at all in rolling out its anti-China containment strategy to such an extent that the risk of war was unbearably high by 2023, requiring moderation. It was simultaneously increasingly clear that US objectives were going to fail in Ukraine.
One might well argue that 2023 marked a year of strategic failure, demonstrating the hard limits of American capacities to reimpose a unipolar world order, a year that was followed by increasing stabilisation in the Chinese economy and key tech breakthroughs signaling the self-defeating futility of the US technology blockade.
Consequently, the Biden Doctrine failed. While a return of Trump would offer the US a good opportunity to shift tactics, the Chinese were rather confident that he would be even less effective than his predecessor in rallying international support against China. They thought he would be even more likely to feed polarisation and crises in governance among American allies and in the US itself and more likely to negotiate a trade deal, as happened during the first Trump presidency.
That’s because a trade war ultimately brings great pain to Americans and, soon enough, Trump’s Congressional comrades would face voters who want the peace and inflation relief he promised them.
US president previously imposed additional customs duties of 10 percent on all products imported from China.
Indeed, if Republicans lose control of Congress, the second coming of Trump will be regarded as a second failure, and the anathema of lame-duck status will invoke for some of us the popular Chinese meme of Trump as a “golden rooster.”
While Trump hasn’t shown his hand entirely, Beijing sees the US exploring three potential strategic pathways simultaneously. First, he might go all in on decoupling and anti-China containment. But this could risk provoking the sort of economic warfare that could push China against the dollar. This could, in turn, lead more directly to military conflict, given the fact that the US economy (and thus US military power) is substantially a house of cards built on the power of the dollar as the supranational currency.
Second, he could promote a policy of strategic retreat to a narrower sphere of influence, a New Monroe Doctrine, as some of his moves suggest, returning primarily to the Western hemisphere where the US is favoured geographically. This could be supplemented with moves against Greenland and Canada, given the relative value of the Global North vis-a-vis climate change.
Meanwhile, China and Russia would then have to figure out their respective positions in Central Asia especially, which might be easier said than done, despite the progress the two have made by working together with a strategic partnership and via the Belt-Road Initiative, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Third, Trump is accumulating leverage for a grand bargain perhaps, where he hopes to get as much as possible from China, including protections for the dollar, the US economy, and US strategic interests in the Americas, while eventually encouraging Chinese investment and manufacturing in the US, and outflanking Europe as he does. This possibility certainly titillates Beijing and horrifies Europe, and of the three pathways might be the most realistic, one that would need to be realised before Congress reaches the midterms.
It’s fair to say that China understands these tactics and possible strategic pathways, and has contingency plans for each. In the meantime, appearing alarmed or alarmist is not something Beijing wants to communicate, because that’s precisely what Trump is trying to elicit. The last thing he wants to hear is that a country more powerful than Russia is ready for war. And unlike Canada, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia, China won’t be bullied into concessions.
