Supported by Asia Pacific Why China Is Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Trade War Photo Imported soybeans at a port in Nantong, China. The latest Chinese tariffs were intended to deliver a warning that American producers and consumers would pay in a trade war. Credit Chinatopix, via Associated Press BEIJING — China’s leaders sound supremely confident that they can win a trade war with President Trump.
The state news media has depicted him as a reckless bully intent on undermining the global trading system, while presenting the Chinese government as a fair-minded champion of free trade. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has used the standoff to reinforce the Communist Party’s message that the United States is determined to stop China’s rise — but that it no longer can. China is already too strong, its economy too big.
“China is not afraid of a trade war,” the vice minister of finance, Zhu Guangyao, declared at a news conference to discuss possible countermeasures. More than once, he ..