Trump Failing To Grasp China's Long-Game Trade War Tactics

2025-05-08 05:01:34

(MENAFN- Asia Times) As US and Chinese representatives prepare to meet in Switzerland in an effort to ease their escalating trade war, a potential sign of Beijing's approach has emerged in an opinion piece published in the state-owned journal Beijing Daily.

Articles in the publication are often seen as a reflection of Beijing's official stance. The latest piece – Today, it is necessary to revisit“On Protracted War” – argues that the trade war is an American attempt to strangle China's economic growth and that it is necessary to perceive the current trade tensions as a long-term development.

What's particularly important here is that the title refers to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong's 1938 essay“On Protracted War“, a piece of writing that set out Mao's approach to combating the invading Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945.

This strategy was also key to the subsequent establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, after the communist victory in the long-running Chinese civil war. Mao became the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1943 until his death in 1976 and created a set of political theories referred to as Maoism . He wrote extensively on political strategy.

Chinese policymakers and media figures often invoke the nation's history to justify domestic and foreign policy. And the decision to reference Mao's text reflects not only China's strategy in the current trade war but also the lasting influence of his ideas.

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