0
ALMOST 70 years ago, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong dismissed the US as a “paper tiger”. He clarified that the reference was strategic. “Regarding [American imperialism] as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal.”
That diatribe dates back to 1956, long before Mao himself, by then on his last legs, welcomed Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to Beijing. Post-Mao, China entered a new phase of economic development, condescendingly encouraged by the US, that indeed turned out to be a great leap forward. It took the capitalist road to rapid growth, attracting foreign investment to a booming economy with a well-educated, low-wage workforce and minimal risk of industrial disruption.
Decades of double-digit growth ensued, and since the start of this century China’s share of global manufacturing has shot up from six per cent to 32pc. Also, the mass production of low-value goods such as cheap garments has been overtaken by the output of cutting-edge hi-tech marvels from smartphones to e-vehicles. During roughly the same period, a bipartisan anti-Beijing trend has accelerated in Washington whereby China is increasingly seen as not just the main economic rival but also the chief strategic adversary.
The first Trump administration’s high tariffs against China did not shift under Joe Biden. This month, after Donald Trump suspended his supposedly irrevocable tariffs on pretty much every country in the world (including a couple of uninhabited islands) after stock markets went into free fall, China was excluded from the reprieve. When Beijing retaliated, Trump pumped up the levy to 145pc, citing its “disrespect”. China has declared that it’s response won’t rise higher than 125pc, because that level suffices as a barrier to almost all American imports.
Then the reliably erratic US president announced an exception for technological products. Soon afterwards it was declared that this was only a temporary exemption and targeted tariffs would follow. It’s not just China that is keen to discover whether there’s any method in the madness. The whole world is on tenterhooks, and Trump says that there is a conga line of foreign leaders desperate to kowtow in order to obtain a deal before the 90-day leeway lapses.
Is the US still a paper tiger to Beijing?
Unlike many of his utterances, that’s not entirely fiction. Many countries would indeed welcome a fair deal, and have neither threatened nor imposed reciprocal tariffs. Most have also not responded to China’s invitation to join it in combating Trump’s “trade tyranny”. That’s only to be expected of the Anglophone allies and Nato acolytes in Europe, but even the countries on President Xi Jinping’s travel itinerary this week — Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia — will be reluctant at this stage to incur the wrath of Washington by openly embracing Beijing as a saviour.
As a repressive one-party state, China is hardly a commendable role model for the Global South. But then, unlike the US, it has rarely claimed to be a bastion of free speech (barring the duplicitous ‘let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred school of thoughts contend’ campaign from 1956), whereas Trumpian America today seems keen to emulate Chinese (or Russian/ Hungarian/ Argentinian/ El Salvadoran) authoritarianism.
However, even a cursory observer of China’s trajectory since 1949 (it wasn’t officially recognised by Washington until 30 years later) can see why, despite serving as a handmaiden to US imperialism in the 1970s-80s, bowing to humiliation is not on Beijing’s agenda. Unlike other associates of the US, it cannot be expected to grovel. The century of humiliation preceding the 1949 revolution has figured prominently on the same propaganda agenda that has sought to destroy memories of the massacre on Tiananmen Square in 1989.
There is unlikely to be a near-term shift in China’s often deplorable domestic politics, let alone a great leap forward in redressing the disparities of wealth flowing from capitalism with Chinese characteristics. But it might win plenty more friends if it could step up to fill the international funding gaps that the demise of USAID has created. Saving hundreds of thousands of lives could serve as a reminder that all is not lost — and perhaps there’s much to be gained — when the US opts for isolation and viable alternatives arise.
Viable complaints about China fade into insignificance when the US travels down a similar road. “In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao said in 1956. “It is a paper tiger … unable to stand the wind and the rain.” Mao might not have been aware of it, but Trump’s determination to ignore climate change might doom America well before his administration realises that his predilections could be a gift for China in the longer term.
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2025
