China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up
Chinese state media is rallying the public and posting old propaganda footage, but officials are also careful to leave room for talks with President Trump.
By Lily Kuo
Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan
Over the last few days, Chinese state media have been posting an old video of Mao Zedong issuing one of his most famous battle cries. “For as long as they want to fight,” he shouts from behind a row of microphones, “we will fight!”
Speaking in 1953, China’s former leader was referring to the United States, which it fought during the Korean War. Today, Beijing portrays itself as fighting a different but no less existential battle with its old rival, as the two countries engage in a deepening trade war that threatens to engulf the global economy.
The latest round includes U.S. threats of 100 percent tariffs — a response to Beijing’s announcement last week of new export controls over rare earth minerals — as well as port fees levied by both countries, Chinese sanctions on U.S. shipping subsidiaries and a possible U.S. ban on Chinese cooking oil imports.
Faced with the breakdown of what was a fragile truce between the two countries after months of tit-for-tat retaliation, China’s propaganda machine went to work this week, rallying citizens with messages of resilience and patriotism. At the same time, state media and officials have held back from more strident language — a sign that the Chinese leadership is still leaving room for reconciliation with the United States.
“They don’t want to box themselves in,” said Dali Yang, a professor at the University of Chicago who researches Chinese politics. He said that years of hawkish “wolf warrior” diplomacy had taught China’s leaders the dangers of fanning nationalism.
“Sometimes, when public sentiment was so mobilized, it was hard for the authorities to de-escalate and sometimes, in the process, that made them look bad,” he said.
The current trade tensions come at a time when China is struggling with deflation, a flagging property market and stubbornly high youth unemployment, as well as trade restrictions imposed by the United States and other countries.
Yet, it is also a time of optimism. China’s advances in artificial intelligence, success in finding new export markets and its surging domestic stock market are ballast for even more aggressive action by the government. Chinese state media have framed Beijing’s new rules on rare earths as its boldest move yet.
“Chinese people increasingly understand that a single blow is enough to prevent a hundred blows,” Chao Xing, a commentator wrote in the state-run Beijing Daily on Tuesday. “This courage and determination to remain unyielding in the face of difficulties has solidified public support for the Chinese government to take further forceful measures to address external challenges.”
Commentators in other outlets described Beijing’s latest measure as a “fatal blow” and a way of giving the United States, which restricts exports of U.S. technology to China, a “taste of its own medicine.”
China mines and processes the vast majority of the world’s rare earths, an essential component needed for everything from semiconductors to cars. Previous controls by Beijing in April upended U.S. manufacturers and caused shortages around the world.
The renewal of trade tensions has put an anticipated meeting this month between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, into question.
The hawkish tone and Mao videos belie Beijing’s real priorities, which are to negotiate with Washington on tariffs, export controls and U.S. support of Taiwan.
“It’s called propaganda. It could be that they don’t want to keep fighting,” said Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, who said Beijing was using both its economic might and the idea that China will not give up as a way to pressure the U.S.
After years of propaganda accusing the United States of trying to suppress China, managing public morale can be a difficult balancing act.
“It helps the government frame the moment as another stress test for China’s economic system and to rally domestic confidence amid real anxieties about growth,” said Lizzi C. Lee, a fellow focusing on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “The obvious risk, though, is that each round of domestic nationalist excitement narrows that room a bit more, making any compromise politically harder to sell at home.”
Chinese officials sought to downplay their new measures on rare earths — which also restrict international shipments of products with trace amounts of rare earths from China — emphasizing that the controls are not export bans but a licensing system. On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said there was still “vast room for cooperation” between the countries.
“In reality, the United States does not need to overreact,” Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute wrote in an editorial on Wednesday on a state-run website, describing the new rare earth regulations as merely a “legal move.”
Chinese experts like Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Committee of the China Association of Policy Science Research, also emphasized that there was space for compromise. “The controls will definitely be loosened. If you back down, then they’ll definitely be loosened,” he said of the United States.
“Everything is negotiable,” he added.
Pei-Lin Wu contributed reporting.
Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei.