How China is preparing for America’s next president

LONDON — While the rest of the world weighs the impact of a Donald Trump or a Kamala Harris victory in November’s US presidential election, both candidates present serious challenges for China. To be sure, neither seems to want open conflict between the two powers, which could precipitate a nightmarish descent into global chaos. But Chinese decision-makers expect bitter disputes over trade, technology and Taiwan regardless of who wins.

China is preparing for more turbulence by taking a whole-country approach to its relations with the US. That means moving beyond the realm of foreign affairs and coordinating with economic policymakers, military personnel and technology leaders, as well as mobilising resources across the country. Such an approach is informed by the US strategy of containment, which in recent years has included relentless efforts to maintain America’s technological supremacy, curb China’s access to the global market and build a coalition of allies, both in Asia and elsewhere, to tackle the “China challenge”. Feeling under siege, China is girding itself for long-term enmity with the world’s largest economy.

As part of this process, China has shifted its economic paradigm away from chasing growth at any cost to building a resilient economy that is driven by innovation and can cope with protracted geopolitical tensions. By accelerating domestic innovation, Chinese President Xi Jinping also aims to restructure the economy and help reduce its overreliance on the property sector. The recently concluded third plenum of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee gave the final stamp of approval for this massive overhaul.

Scientific advancement and technological prowess is another of Xi’s key strategic goals. China has attached great importance to developing its capacity for innovation and is determined to become a global champion in certain tech sectors. But targeted US sanctions against Chinese tech companies and individuals have thwarted these efforts, and are thus working as intended.

Trade and investment have traditionally been seen as stabilizing forces in Sino-American relations. But Chinese leaders now place less emphasis on them because their tangible benefits to bilateral ties have been significantly reduced, owing to increased commercial competitiveness and the country’s transition from a low-end, export-led growth model to a high-end, technology-driven economy. China’s rapid progress in manufacturing electric vehicles and semiconductors has instead stoked trade tensions with the US.

But Taiwan is still by far the most sensitive issue in US-China relations. Despite no formal changes to the wording of China’s policy, Chinese strategists largely consider the current situation to be precarious, given Taiwan’s new pro-independence government. This will likely result in China shifting to more active deterrence against Taiwan’s leadership and, by extension, the US. With America similarly strengthening deterrent measures against China, the ingredients for a confrontation in the Taiwan Strait are in place. To prevent the worst-case scenario, Xi should conduct regular face-to-face conversations with whomever US voters elect in November.

China’s main goal is to ensure that any further erosion of Sino-American relations does not hinder economic growth, which underpins the regime’s legitimacy. Chinese policymakers have thus tried to minimise damage from the country’s fallout with the US by expanding its economic and political influence in the rest of the world, most notably in the Global South. This could buy time for China to build economic resilience and accelerate the pace of technological development.

With Trump and Harris vying to sound the toughest on China in the run-up to the election, Chinese decision-makers harbour no illusions that rocky relations with the US will magically improve in the near future. But the Sino-American relationship should not be viewed with excessive pessimism. China’s policy toward the US has always been and will continue to be a product of balanced deliberation that accounts for the state of international affairs and weighs the country’s own needs. That has not changed, despite major shifts in the political landscape under Xi.

It is promising that both sides have recently shown more interest in responsibly managing ties. While the Sino-American rivalry will not disappear overnight, the world’s two largest economies could still avoid conflict, and the catastrophic consequences that would likely follow, no matter who enters the White House next year.

Yu Jie is a senior research fellow on China in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024.

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