Xi Jinping’s Repetitive Congratulations as CCP Lacks Strategy to Face Trump

U.S.-China Confrontation. (Video screenshot)

[People News] A few years ago, Jin Canrong, an expert on international issues close to the CCP, mentioned in an interview that the Party faced four major political challenges, with stabilizing U.S.-China relations at the core. Resolving U.S.-China relations was essential for addressing subsequent issues. However, the CCP has not achieved this goal; instead, it has faced repeated setbacks. Now, Trump’s re-election as U.S. president has intensified Beijing’s concerns.

Following Trump’s victory, Xi Jinping did not send an immediate congratulatory message. It was only on November 7 that he issued a congratulatory note, prominently featured on state media and military websites. Yet, this message was repetitive, stating, “A stable, healthy, and sustainable U.S.-China relationship serves the common interests of both countries and meets the expectations of the international community,” and adding, “I hope both sides uphold the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, enhance dialogue, manage differences properly, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and find a new path for correct U.S.-China relations in this new era.”

Compared to the congratulatory message Xi sent in November 2016 when Trump was first elected, this year’s note showed less “confidence” from Xi and the CCP, lacking the boldness to be seen as an equal to the U.S.

Eight years ago, Xi’s message included language emphasizing responsibility: “As the world’s largest developing country and the largest developed country, the two largest economies, China and the U.S. bear a special and important responsibility for maintaining world peace and promoting global prosperity.” This year, there was no mention of “important responsibility.”

Back then, Xi spoke in the first person: “I highly value U.S.-China relations and look forward to working with you… to expand bilateral, regional, and global cooperation… and promote greater progress in U.S.-China relations from a new starting point.” This language aimed to showcase his status. Now, “I” has disappeared, indicating not only the cooling of bilateral relations but also revealing that the CCP currently lacks effective strategies to handle a Trump administration, only hoping to “find a new path for correct U.S.-China relations.”

Beijing’s understanding of a “correct path” contrasts sharply with Washington’s. The CCP envisions a scenario where both nations grow, profit, and prosper together, without decoupling, sanctions, or accountability. They hope the U.S. will ease pressure in exchange for economic benefits. The CCP’s premise for “mutual respect and peaceful coexistence” is that the U.S. adheres to its rules, opens markets to allow CCP infiltration, and follows CCP’s guidelines. Otherwise, any deviation is seen as disrespectful and disruptive.

However, the U.S., having long distinguished the CCP from China and its people—especially among Republican hawks—has grown tired of CCP’s repetitive empty rhetoric. Past decades have proven that from Mao Zedong shouting “Long live American democracy” to Xi Jinping’s “a thousand reasons to get U.S.-China relations right,” the CCP switches between friendliness and hostility based on self-interest. Will Americans, having been deceived multiple times, fall for this again?

In March 2023, former Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger testified at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party, exposing CCP’s deception. He noted, “The Chinese [CCP] leadership and the party he leads are masters of concealing their true intentions. They are adept at presenting an illusion to outsiders while speaking, planning, and acting differently behind closed doors... The CCP has succeeded in portraying itself as constructive, cooperative, responsible, and normal—arguably one of the greatest tricks in modern history.”

So, what actions will U.S. officials who recognize the true threat of the CCP take during Trump’s second term? The CCP’s offenses against the U.S.—spreading the virus, buying out protective products at the start of the pandemic, collaborating with deep-state actors to interfere in U.S. elections, manipulating Chinese diaspora associations to support movements like “Black Lives Matter,” causing chaos, infiltrating American politics, academia, and business to obstruct Trump, cyber-intrusions stealing secrets from government agencies to tech companies, and raising funds on Wall Street through military-linked companies—will they go unpunished?

For clues on Trump’s potential second-term approach, one can refer to the 2019 Election Day Collection published by the White House, titled “Trump on China: America First.” This compilation highlighted a “generational shift in U.S. foreign policy.” The White House noted that the Trump administration would not overlook CCP behavior or conceal criticisms.

On November 17, 2020, the State Department released a report titled The Elements of the China Challenge, outlining the CCP’s challenges, behavior, ideological roots, vulnerabilities, and U.S. strategies to safeguard freedom. This showed that U.S. political circles were fully prepared to confront the CCP.

The future holds more causes for Beijing’s authoritarian regime to worry, and Trump’s election could act as a catalyst for significant internal changes within the CCP. 

First published by People News