It was a good year for Xi Jinping
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T HE BIG noise in 2025 has been President Donald Trump. Launching a barrage of executive orders, he directed his fire at target after target. With the aid of Elon Musk, he attempted to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. On “Liberation Day” he rewrote the rules of trade. Around the world he imposed peace and threatened war.
However, the big beneficiary has been President Xi Jinping. This year China defied Mr Trump’s attempt to use tariffs to force a show of submission. By turning the tables, Mr Xi revealed just how much America actually depends on his policies. In this round of the superpowers’ fight for 21st-century supremacy, it was a victory for China.
This year showed the power of China’s industrial chokeholds. China’s share of the world’s manufacturing value added exceeds one-third, giving it the power to disrupt global supply chains overnight. In green technology, Chinese firms supply the materials, components and finished goods for 60-80% of solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles. DeepSeek showed what China can do in artificial intelligence, despite America’s best efforts to hobble it. China’s drug firms now run nearly as many clinical trials as their American peers—and do them faster. Two decades ago Western firms invested in China to take advantage of its cheap producers and huge market. Today they build laboratories there.
In 2025 Mr Xi showed he is willing to use China’s dominance as not just a source of wealth, but of power. His restrictions on rare-earth exports are one example of how China can use other countries’ dependency as a weapon. Findings this month from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute show that China leads in research in 66 of 74 fields, measured by its share of key scientific papers. These include over two dozen areas, such as computer vision and grid integration, where it has a chokehold.
The extraordinary thing is that Mr Trump has played into Mr Xi’s hands, both with his tariffs abroad and his wrecking-ball at home. Choosing bilateral tariffs as a way to inflict pain on China was a mistake. Partly because Chinese firms are used to harsh conditions and partly because China is not a democracy, its economy is better at enduring pain than America’s. Mr Trump could instead have co-ordinated a commercial encirclement of China by integrating more deeply with America’s allies. Foolishly, he preferred to alienate them with tariffs.
Likewise, Mr Trump’s attack on science will impede American innovation. He has targeted researchers, cancelling grants and withholding billions of dollars in funding to institutions that he does not like. Framed as an effort to eliminate inefficiency and woke ideology, his efforts have curbed financing for vital research. His hostility to foreign scientists, especially ethnic Chinese ones, is part of a more general assault on immigration. Talented people will either leave America or choose not to move there. China has already benefited.
The question is where this leaves the superpowers. In the short run, the advantage is surely with China. America and its allies cannot soon deprive it of its chokeholds. Should Mr Xi choose to throttle Taiwan, America and its allies may find that sanctions intended to force China to back off will trigger reprisals that cause more harm than their industries and citizens are willing to bear. That would have grave implications for East Asian security, and for America’s role in the western Pacific.
In the longer run, China’s dynamism could be stifled by its rigid politics. To see why, consider its economy. Factory-gate prices were 2.2% lower in November than a year earlier, and have declined for 38 months in a row. Property prices in the secondary market are more than 20% below their peak and still falling. Although the party has pledged to stimulate domestic demand next year, it will also double down on strategic manufacturing—the very thinking that has mired it in overcapacity.
By the end of 2026 that may seem like hubris. As provinces and cities struggle to pay down debt, stagnation could become even more entrenched, a bit like Japan’s lost decades. Deflation could worsen if countries unwilling to lose their own industries block more of China’s cut-price exports. Yet as Mr Xi prepares to start a fourth term in charge in 2027, his underlings seemingly cannot or will not challenge him.
In China the bigger the mistake, the less willing the party is to change course. By contrast, America has change built in—indeed MAGA ’s bent for deregulation and its impatience with the suffocating effects of elite political correctness were examples of that principle in action. Whereas China is an ethno-nationalist state in which people who are not Han Chinese struggle to be accepted, America is founded on universal values that speak to every race and creed. These values have long made America a magnet for talent and enhanced its global influence. In the past they have also bound together its alliances.
In theory, all that should be the basis for renewal. However, Mr Trump scorns universal values as gimmicks exploited by cynical foreigners. Oppression does not shock him: he admires iron-fisted rulers, especially when they are also rich. As his recent National Security Strategy showed, MAGA sees ethnic and religious diversity as a threat, not a source of strength. If America is just one more ethno-nationalist project like Russia or China it will squander its greatest advantage.
Ring the changes
Next summer America will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That should be the occasion for a debate about the republic’s founding principles. America’s economy remains the envy of the world. Nowhere else can mobilise ideas and capital on such a scale. Its people possess tremendous reserves of skill and enterprise.
Ideally, this would mean that the hopes of renewal will burn bright. The question is how much Mr Trump’s corruption of public life, his administration’s vindictiveness towards those in public service and his diminishment of Congress will dim America’s prospects. Mr Xi will be watching. ■
논증 분석
유형: causal
핵심 주장
2025년 Donald Trump의 정책 실패가 역설적으로 Xi Jinping의 중국을 강화시켰으며, 단기적으로는 중국이 미중 패권 경쟁에서 우위를 점하고 있다.
논리구조
- 전제: 2025년의 최대 수혜자는 Donald Trump가 아니라 Xi Jinping이며, 중국은 미국의 관세 압박을 오히려 역이용해 미국의 대중 의존도를 드러냈다.
- 논거: 중국은 세계 제조업 부가가치의 1/3 이상을 차지하며, 태양광·풍력·전기차 등 녹색기술 공급망의 60~80%를 장악하고, DeepSeek으로 AI 역량을 입증하고, 제약 임상시험에서도 미국에 근접하는 등 산업·기술 전반에 걸쳐 강력한 ‘초크홀드(chokehold)‘를 보유하고 있다.
- 논거: Xi Jinping은 희토류 수출 제한 등을 통해 산업 지배력을 단순한 부의 원천이 아닌 지정학적 무기로 활용할 의지를 2025년에 명확히 드러냈으며, Australian Strategic Policy Institute 연구에 따르면 중국은 74개 핵심 연구 분야 중 66개에서 선두를 달리고 있다.
- 진단: Donald Trump의 양자 관세 전략은 실수였다. 중국 기업은 혹독한 환경에 단련되어 있고, 비민주주의 체제인 중국 경제는 미국보다 고통 감내 능력이 높다. Donald Trump는 관세로 동맹국을 소외시키는 대신, 동맹 통합을 통한 대중 포위 전략을 선택했어야 했다.
- 진단: Donald Trump의 과학 연구 지원 삭감, 연구비 취소, 외국인(특히 중국계) 과학자 배척 정책은 미국의 혁신 역량을 저해하며, 이미 중국이 미국을 떠나는 인재를 흡수하는 효과를 낳고 있다.
- 논거: 단기적으로는 중국이 유리하다. 미국과 동맹국들은 중국의 공급망 초크홀드를 단시일 내에 해소할 수 없으며, 만약 Xi Jinping이 Taiwan을 압박할 경우 제재에 대한 중국의 보복이 서방 산업과 시민들이 감내할 수 있는 수준을 초과할 위험이 있다.
- 반론: 장기적으로는 중국의 경직된 정치체제가 역동성을 억누를 수 있다. 38개월 연속 공장 출하 가격 하락, 부동산 가격 20% 이상 폭락, 과잉생산 심화, 지방정부 부채 등 구조적 문제가 일본의 ‘잃어버린 수십 년’과 같은 장기 침체로 이어질 수 있으며, Xi Jinping의 측근들은 이 노선에 이의를 제기하지 못하고 있다.
- 반론: 미국은 변화에 내재적인 강점을 지니고 있다. 보편적 가치에 기반한 다민족 이민 국가로서 인재를 끌어들이고 동맹을 결속시키는 능력, 세계 최대의 아이디어와 자본 동원력이 미국의 잠재적 갱생(renewal)의 토대다.
- 진단: 그러나 Donald Trump는 보편적 가치를 거부하고 민족주의적 노선을 택함으로써, 미국이 러시아·중국과 같은 민족국가 프로젝트로 전락할 위험을 자초하고 있으며, 이는 미국의 최대 강점을 스스로 낭비하는 것이다.
결론
단기적으로는 중국이 미중 경쟁에서 앞서고 있지만, 미국의 진정한 쇄신 가능성은 Donald Trump가 보편적 가치와 동맹 네트워크라는 미국의 핵심 강점을 얼마나 훼손하느냐에 달려 있으며, Xi Jinping은 그 귀추를 예의주시하고 있다.
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