In an initial statement responding to the tariffs that Trump announced last week, China’s foreign ministry accused the US of violating WTO rules and undermining the global economic order, promising that China “will only continue to open its doors wider, regardless of the changing international landscape.” On the same day that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was in Japan for the trilateral meeting, the China Coast Guard made its longest-ever incursion into waters disputed between the two countries in the East China Sea — exactly the sort of action sure to exacerbate longstanding tensions and remind Japan of the value of its relationship with the US. But the argument that the US has often leveled — that China is a predatory actor on the world stage, using trade and investment to bend countries to its will — has become harder to make in a world where the president of the United States is bragging about the countries coming to grovel before him.
Author: Joshua Keating
Published at: 2025-04-08 22:39:39
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