What cards does China hold?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump’s fury with China shows no sign of abating. High tariffs - first imposed by the US but now on both sides - are giving way to a very real trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. China’s President Xi Jinping is refusing to blink - so far - and in the past week he's been on the road in South East Asia, visiting Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. Where this goes now depends in large part on China's calculations about the capacity and determination of both sides to endure a trade war. So what cards does China hold ? And what are the implications for China's own economy and for the rest of us?
Guests: Damien Ma, Economist, Kellogg School of Management, Chicago Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School Isabel Hilton, visiting Professor at the Lau China Institute, King's College, London David Henig, Director of the UK Trade Policy Project
Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight, Lucy Pawle Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Sound Engineer: James Beard Editor: Max Deveson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.7 | In the last week, while the Trump tariff hokey-cokey continued in the White House, |
| 0:13.9 | Xi Jinping, President of China, was on the road in Southeast Asia, |
| 0:18.4 | a tour that President Trump described as a series of meetings plotting, |
| 0:21.8 | quote, how do we screw America? To which the Chinese responded by accusing him of whining. |
| 0:28.7 | If this was fiction, it might be funny, but it isn't and it isn't. As of now, two of the world's |
| 0:35.1 | three economic superpowers, the other one being the European Union, |
| 0:38.7 | are engaged in a trade war, with China responding in kind to America's huge new tariffs. |
| 0:45.2 | If this is a game, it's one in which the Chinese leadership will be looking hard at what cards they hold. |
| 0:50.9 | So when they look at their hand, what do they see? |
| 0:53.6 | And what's likely to be their strategy |
| 0:55.2 | as a result? Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. First, how healthy and |
| 1:04.6 | resilient is China's economy? Damien Ma is an economist at the Kellogg School of Management |
| 1:09.8 | in Chicago specialising in the Chinese economy. Damien Ma is an economist at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago specializing in the Chinese economy. |
| 1:13.5 | Damian Ma was China surprised by what Donald Trump announced on Liberation Day? |
| 1:19.5 | I think the answer to that would be yes and no. I think the Chinese government came into the new Trump administration thinking that it could be disruptive and that they |
| 1:27.8 | were going to get quote unquote punched on trade. But then nothing happened for a while so that I think |
| 1:33.3 | that threw them for a loop. And I think they were ultimately little surprised by how fast and furious |
| 1:38.4 | the tariffs came because they spent the first bit of the administration trying to reach out. |
| 1:43.9 | They thought there |
| 1:44.5 | was room to talk, but none of that actually happened. So I think they grew frustrated. And then |
| 1:49.7 | Trump just launched his liberation day. But they did expect, and they were preparing for trade |
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