China is in a competition of “economic resilience” with the United States, which means that it must double to strengthen interior industrial capacities, according to Zheng Yongnian, a leading Chinese political scientist and government councilor.
In a interview With national media published on Wednesday, Zheng accused the United States of “the internationalization of its internal problems” of inequality, populism and polarization. “The United States has benefited the most from globalization but have not managed the distribution of income. It is their own governance problem, not the problem of China,” he said.
In response to the escalation of trade war, China must focus on strengthening manufacturing and the real economy to increase economic resilience. “It is only in this way that we can remain invalid in our long-term competition with the United States,” he said.
The interview was widely shared on Chinese social media, with more than 100,000 views of WeChat. Zheng’s call to greater self -sufficiency echoes the rallying cry of “fight until the end“This has become viral in the media discourse closely controlled in China.
The American prices on Chinese imports are currently 125% after the announcement of President Donald Trump on April 9. In a social media position, Trump granted a 90 -day break to “reciprocal prices” for dozens of countries, with the exception of China, which saw its rate increase again. Meanwhile, reprisal rates of 84% of China on American imports entered into force on April 10.
The same day, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lin Jian, said that the United States used prices as a “weapon” and seriously damage the world economic order.
Zheng is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of China known to have the ear of Chinese officials. Currently, the dean of the School of Public Policy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, the book of Zheng “The China Model: Experience and Challenges” is a designated manual of the central school of the Chinese Communist Party.
In recent days, Zheng has publicly condemned Trump’s plan to reindustrialize the United States as “unrealizable” and prices as “selfish”. However, he also called for vigilance among Chinese leaders against the underestimation of the United States Force
“The vitality of the United States has never been in its government, but rather in its society and its capital,” wrote the professor in a comment Published on April 7, after Trump’s initial announcement of prices on April 2 but before the last climbs. Zheng noted that Trump’s efforts to deregulate and reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy have the potential to reshape American society despite the skepticism of many American elites.
“In fact, the [mainstream U.S.] The Economic Community has a great responsibility for the current state of the American economy, “he wrote, suggesting that Chinese companies and political decision-makers were faster to learn the lessons of the first presidential term of Trump than their American counterparts.
“Today, neoliberal economic thinking has no traction in China.”
While boasting that few countries can compare with China in terms of resilience, the professor, who was trained at the University of Beijing and the Princeton University, nevertheless targeted the Chinese nationalists who already declare victory.
“Although many people understand that there are no winners in commercial wars or tariff wars, only losers, there are still a large number of people at the national level, especially on social networks, who believe that we have already won.”
“It is very dangerous because it would mean that the West confuses us … which could ultimately make us make strategic mistakes,” he wrote. Zheng warned the Chinese not to put a lot of stock in the recent coverage of Western points of sale such as The New York Times And The Economist This framework for Trump actions as benefiting from China to the detriment of the United States.
“People must have a clear understanding of that – Trump will not make China again big. Only, we can make our country big again. ”
Despite being a well -known defender of the “Chinese model”, Zheng has previously highlighted The links between growing nationalism in Asia and the probability of conflict of conflict in the region in the region, while not blaming the Chinese government.
In his latest comment, he warned that the fallout from the escalation of the trade war should be managed to prevent direct conflicts between the United States and China, especially if Trump’s prices fail to provide the desired results.