Xi Jinping plays hardball.
The Chinese president wants to show his people that the country can resist the economic pain of President Donald Trump’s prices and resist what Beijing calls “intimidation” of America, according to experts.
Trump’s trade war also feeds the strategy on which Xi has been working for years: becoming less dependent on the United States.
This trade break is “exactly what Beijing has prepared for,” said Jude Blanchette, director of Rand China Research Center. “Beijing does not seek negotiation.”
The superpowers of the world are engaged in a risky chicken game, experts said in ABC News. The question is who flashes first.
Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on March 28, 2025 and President Donald Trump in Washington on April 7, 2025.
Getty Images / Reuters
“At present, Xi seems to calculate that China can resist damage and that in the end, it is the United States that will blink first,” said Neil Thomas, a member of Chinese policy in Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis
XI’s point of view is that countries will want to do less business with the United States due to the uncertainty created by prices, which will lead them to China, said Thomas, who added that China has been preparing for this possibility for years by increasing trade relations with the rest of the world.
“Washington and Beijing think they have the stronger hand for various reasons. The Trump administration considers China as dependent on export, they therefore believe that it is an important lever effect to make the Chinese fold,” said Blanchette. “On the other hand, Beijing considers the United States to be lower and lower economically under Trump and far from its allies.”
While Trump at his meeting of the cabinet called on Thursday XI a “friend” and said he would like to conclude an agreement with China, the calculation is not so simple for XI. If Xi moves away from the phone call without agreement, he may lose his face.
“For Xi, there is a huge risk of appearing weak in his relations with the United States, he risks being humiliated or having nothing to show for his commitment to Trump,” said Thomas. “The prices will be economically painful, but Xi also sees it as an opportunity to bring China into a healthier situation by reducing dependence in the United States”
There are also other levers that China can shoot to retaliate. Experts say Beijing could prohibit more companies from doing business in China and further limiting exports of critical materials, such as rare land minerals.
China “did not approach the maximum that he could do with his exports of rare earths, since he is such a dominant actor in the industry,” said Thomas.
China could “close enormous segments of high -tech supply chains” by prohibiting minerals of rare earths, said Thomas, calling it “a nuclear option which seriously damaged the American economy but European and Asian economies”.
Beijing also said he would restrict Hollywood films in China. Although it is not “significant” reprisals, Thomas said that “he feeds Xi Jinping’s broader political program to reduce foreign influence on Chinese society”.
But Scott Kenney, principal advisor and president of the Chinese business and economy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued that Beijing thinks that Trump has already blocked eyes by taking a break in reciprocal prices for 90 days.
“I think the Chinese will read it as a weakness by President Trump and they will wait,” he said.
