Trump Has Secret Allies in China
Private-sector Chinese businesses are key to growth, and they happen to share many of the same complaints as the U.S.
Xi has suppressed China’s animal spirits.
Photographer: Tao Zhang/Getty Images AsiaPacIn his tariff war with China, U.S. President Donald Trump has some hidden allies. Just about every complaint U.S. trade negotiators raised in Beijing last week — not to mention their doubts about the sincerity of China’s concessions — are shared by Chinese entrepreneurs, who feel as underappreciated and unwelcome as their foreign counterparts. Their common enemy: the Chinese industrial state, an animus summed up in China by the lament “guo jin, min tui” — the state advances, the private sector retreats.
This reality underscores how tough it will be for the Trump administration to roll back a set of statist industrial policies that are rooted more in politics and ideology than economics. At the same time, it presents Trump with an opportunity — to leverage internal Chinese pressure to open doors both for international investors and a domestic Chinese constituency with a vital stake in playing by global trading rules.