Did China think Donald Trump was bluffing on trade? How Beijing got it wrong
With China and the United States at the centre of the biggest international trade dispute in decades, the South China Morning Post takes an in-depth look at the changing relationship between Beijing and Washington. In the second of a two-part series, Wendy Wu and Kristin Huang explain how China was caught off guard by US President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade action and explore whether Beijing is to blame for the conflict
China’s ruling Communist Party’s tightened control over think tanks and a crackdown on extravagance could be having an impact on how the leadership handles foreign affairs – and weakening Beijing’s understanding of US politics under President Donald Trump.
Sources and analysts say that Beijing appears to have been caught off guard by Trump’s protectionist trade blitz, and that it underestimated rising anti-China sentiment among the US elite.
Even last month when US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross visited Beijing, some in the capital were still hoping Washington could be persuaded not to go ahead with its threat to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.
“They [the Chinese leadership and researchers] didn’t realise how bad the sentiment here is getting. They thought Trump was just bluffing, and they still think like that,” according to a former US policy adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity.