Chinese President Xi Jinping has based his power on surpassing the United States, and that "intransigence" is what's keeping the two countries from getting to the table on trade, China expert and author Gordon Chang said Friday on Newsmax.
"It's very difficult for him to admit that China is dependent on U.S. trade," Chang said on "Wake Up America." "He can't be seen to be giving in to the United States."
Chang said that means that it is important for Xi to say that President Donald Trump "blinked first."
"I think we're going to see China be extremely difficult in these trade negotiations, as they always are, but perhaps more difficult now," said Chang.
Early Friday, China's Commerce Ministry said Beijing is "evaluating" an offer from the Trump administration for talks over the president's crippling taxes, in a move to potentially de-escalate the trade war between the two countries.
Chang said the U.S. is more likely than China to withstand a protracted trade war.
"U.S. consumers account for what, 38%, 39% of global consumer spending?" he said. "This is a market that China cannot replace, especially because Xi Jinping, because he's turned his back on consumption as being the fundamental basis of the Chinese economy, now relies on exports to be that fundamental basis."
Further, the U.S. is the "trade deficit country," meaning it has all the tools in a trade war, said Chang.
"We're the bigger economy," he said. "China's economy right now is contracting. We saw the first indications in April."
And Xi, Chang added, "just really has only one card, and that's to persuade the American people to get President Trump to preemptively surrender. I don't think our president is going to do that."
Meanwhile, even before April's disastrous factory numbers for China, the nation was in a "deflationary spiral," said Chang.
"We saw this from February and March price numbers," he said. "That means the Chinese economy is in real distress. But Xi Jinping doesn't care. He's like his hero, Mao Zedong. He can do things that everyone else believes are irrational."
Chang predicted that Xi will continue to block any real negotiations for some time to come, "if not forever," to allow China at least a partial victory.
Meanwhile, companies like Apple are moving their supply chains from China, as smaller firms have already moved out, putting the country in a difficult position.
"When you look at the broad trends of manufacturing, which is basically AI and automation robots, those favor the United States," Chang said. "So long term, we're in a very good position and China is not. This is a very important story in terms of the way the world is working. And in a period of deglobalization, which we're in, a trade-dependent China is in a world of hurt."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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