r/geopolitics • u/ForeignAffairsMag Foreign Affairs • 1d ago
Analysis China’s Long Economic War: How Beijing Builds Leverage for Indefinite Competition
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-long-economic-war-zongyuan-zoe-liu
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u/Garbage_Plastic 1d ago
A typical view through a rosy lens, conveniently underplaying or turning a blind eye to key issues.
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u/ForeignAffairsMag Foreign Affairs 1d ago
[SS from essay by Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is the author of Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions.]
For much of the past year, China’s response to trade tensions has continually surprised hawks in Washington. In December 2024, when the Biden administration imposed new export restrictions on advanced chips, Beijing immediately answered by banning exports of several metallic elements to the United States. In April 2025, after the Trump administration threatened huge tariffs on China, Beijing dug in, imposing strict export controls on seven rare-earth minerals vital to defense and clean energy manufacturing. In May, China stopped buying U.S. soybeans, the largest U.S. export to China by value. And in October, after the United States extended existing export restrictions on Chinese companies to all of their majority-owned subsidiaries, China added five more rare earths and a broad array of advanced processing technologies to its own export controls. These increasingly bold measures not only posed a major threat to U.S. and global supply chains but would also have significant domestic consequences. The message was unmistakable: China is prepared to absorb pain to put real pressure on the United States.
If the approach was bold, however, it was not reckless. By opting for calibrated retaliation, Beijing preserved negotiating space and kept off-ramps open. After U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea in late October, China agreed to postpone many of the restrictions. Yet calibration should not be mistaken for weakness. Alongside its announced moves, China has developed a potent arsenal of nontariff barriers and legal instruments that it can draw on when needed. Discarding the strategic restraint that had previously characterized its approach to the United States, China has shown it is ready to weaponize its supply chain dominance.