How China's global trade strategy could backfire

中国的全球贸易战略可能适得其反

Behind the Money

2025-04-16

18 分钟
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Over the past three decades, China has built itself into a manufacturing powerhouse. The plan was simple: use exports as a way to avoid becoming too dependent on the west. But with US President Donald Trump imposing 145 per cent tariffs on the country, this strategy now hangs in the balance. The FT’s Beijing bureau chief Joe Leahy explains how Beijing built its export machine and whether its plan to sell the world cheap goods could go wrong. Clip from European Commission.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  For further reading: Will China’s manufacturing juggernaut run out of road?  How China’s record trade surplus helped spark Trump’s tariff war  China says ‘sky won’t fall’ as exports surge ahead of Donald Trump’s tariffs  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Follow Joe Leahy on X (@leahyjoseph). Michela Tindera is on X (@mtindera07) and Bluesky (@mtindera.ft.com), or follow her on LinkedIn for updates about the show and more. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Earlier this week,

  • China's President Xi Jinping embarked on a tour of a few of his country's closest neighbors.

  • Xi Jinping has launched a flurry of diplomacy.

  • And his purpose is to canvass support from China's trading partners and to portray China as a victim of Donald Trump's tariffs.

  • That's the FT's Beijing bureau chief, Zhou Lei.

  • He says that on Xi Jinping's travel agenda are visits to Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

  • He wrote in the Vietnamese media that in trade wars and tariff wars, there are no winners.

  • and that protectionism will lead nowhere.

  • And he also said that all countries should safeguard the multilateral trading system.

  • So he's really portraying China as a champion of globalization.

  • The reason Xi is checking in with these countries is

  • because he's trying to protect an economic model that China's built over decades.

  • I would say China is comfortably the world's trading superpower.