Yu Zhou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has di

China tech shrugged off Trump’s ‘trade war’ − there’s no reason it won’t do the same with new tariffs

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2025-01-17 19:30:04

Yu Zhou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

When Donald Trump returns to the White House, he’ll be accompanied by a coterie of China hawks, all vowing to use tariffs and export bans to stop Beijing from challenging the United States’ supremacy in technology.

This isn’t entirely new; China has faced such trade pressure since Trump first became president in 2017, and it has continued through the Biden administration.

But the scale of what Trump now proposes – he has mentioned tariffs of up to 60% on goods from China – has some commentators suggesting that it could, in the words of one analyst, “keep Beijing on the defensive and permanently transform the rivalry in America’s favor.”

Such a view is premised on the belief that China’s outdated, state-subsidized, manufacturing-for-export model is ripe for disruption by U.S. tariffs.