China’s Xi is Seizing the Moment while the US is in Transition

Donald Trump’s clear win in the US elections has sent shockwaves once again among Washington’s allies. EU member states vacillate between pursuing strategic autonomy and their own defence capabilities, continuing to lean towards their long-term security provider (the US), or perhaps veering towards China, Russia’s quasi-ally. Ukraine’s endgame is looming over Europe, which so far appears incapable of supplying enough weapons and ammunition to meet Ukraine’s needs. Allies in the Indo-Pacific are equally worried as to what Trump’s second term might mean, despite talk that it will bring more US focus to the region. Meanwhile, Beijing has been preparing – better than most – to face Trump as US president once more. 

Countering the US’s actions to prevent ‘China’s rise’ and the ultimate replacement of the Western-led global order has long been a primary focus for Beijing. Following the US election results, it didn’t take long for Xi Jinping, the President and the General Secretary of the Communist Party, to seize the moment and demonstrate that Beijing is prepared to respond to Trump’s second term from a position of strength. 

During his meeting with former US President Joe Biden on the margins of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November, Xi Jinping appeared as a confident leader, warning that the US's continued attempts to contain China would be ‘unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail’. Xi portrayed himself as the rightful leader of the Global South, not only promising aid from China, but also asserting that China’s model could help uplift these countries on their paths to progress. 

Red Lines: Signal of Systemic Superiority or Fragility? 

Xi Jinping used the occasion of the G20 summit to crystallise China’s red lines and cautioned the US against challenging them: ‘The Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, China’s path and system, and China’s development right are four red lines for China’. Xi’s assertive messaging encapsulated a sense of confidence in the Chinese state media amid hopes that US policymakers would finally wake up to the new reality and ‘abandon their illusion of suppressing China’. 

Messaging these red lines isn’t new; during the 2022 Bali meeting with President Joe Biden, Xi Jinping referred to these same principles but in a less direct tone. Emphasising these red lines now appears to be a warning to the Trump administration, while also signalling how Beijing perceives the world. The emphasis on red lines reflects China’s grand strategy towards what it calls ‘the shared destiny for mankind’, which includes installing a global governance model that aligns with its aims. This model encompasses concepts such as indivisible security spheres, with international organisations and international laws that mirror the values of the People’s Republic of China.

The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has gradually come to recognise the vulnerabilities of a one-party system to external criticism. This awareness prompted the release of the first White Paper on democracy by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2005. As China's influence has grown, coinciding with the disunity and decline of Western democracies, the Communist Party leadership has begun promoting its concept of Whole Process Democracy as superior to Western democratic models. Additionally, the Party has defined human rights as one of China’s four red lines, which together with the Chinese concept of democracy constitute a non-negotiable parameter that must be respected in both domestic and international contexts. 

All this implies that Beijing is increasingly confident that, in a systemic competition with the US, China will emerge as a winner, with its system being seen as a superior to that of the West. In Xi Jinping’s speech at the G20 summit, he reframed his idea of a global order as a ‘community with a shared future for mankind’ from a future concept to a present reality: ‘mankind lives in a community with a shared future’. Leaders of liberal democracies, in particular, frequently assert how China is challenging the ‘rules-based order’ – but, according to Xi Jinping’s recent statements, the shift in control of the global order has already occurred.

Finally, Xi Jinping warned that the Chinese people’s right to development is not to be contested, portraying the US’s decoupling efforts as misusing US national security concerns to wrongfully challenge China’s right to development. It is not farfetched to argue that any economic actions taken by the US or its allies that hurt China could be interpreted as crossing a red line.

Beijing’s belligerent attitude in defining Taiwan as an inseparable part of the People’s Republic remains, as always, the most visible of the red lines. The ‘reunification’ agenda crosscuts from diplomacy to hybrid influencing and exhibiting China’s military might.

Winning Message to the Developing World 

The G20 summit in Rio, with the theme of tackling poverty, offered a timely platform for Beijing to present its system as a concrete model which can lift people out of poverty and to present China as siding with the Global South. Once again, this served as a strong reminder of the shortcomings of development policies advocated by liberal democracies and an opportunity to strengthen China’s position among the countries of the Global South. 

In addition to reminding the global audience that ‘China’s story is proof that developing countries can eliminate poverty’, Xi Jinping showed once more the power of proactive policy proposals. He came up with eight concrete actions to advance global development which no doubt resonated well with those from developing countries. One indication of Beijing’s success is how the Global South increasingly sides with Beijing in UN General Assembly voting. 

Xi called for more resources to be devoted to trade, investment and development cooperation. He demanded – as a criticism towards Western democracies – less ‘small yard, high fences’, so that developing countries would be better able to achieve modernisation. Xi tied these objectives to himself personally by saying how ‘Poverty alleviation has always been a priority and a major task I am determined to deliver’ – mirroring his policy of Common Prosperity and concern about how inequality could eventually threaten the Party’s legitimacy.

To build such a world, and as a counternarrative to US unipolarity, Xi stresses multilateralism and a multipolar global order which would be built around the UN. At the same time, Beijing has been heavily focused on turning the UN into a China-friendly body, for instance by pushing the Belt and Road Initiative within the UN, by chairing important committees and by increasing its financial contributions to the UN. 

However, one must realise the connection between the party’s thinking and the official narrative of the multipolar world. The Tianxia concept, or all under heaven, and the Chinese vision of a ‘community of a common destiny for mankind’ require a centre, and that centre is the People’s Republic governed by the Chinese Communist Party, which effectively implies a China-led global order.

Therefore, the notion of an equal multipolar world, where countries share comparable influence in global decision-making, does not – in reality – align with Beijing’s vision of the global community. The true nature of Beijing’s perspective is likely to intensify the confrontation between liberal democratic systems and China, especially under the Trump administration. A world divided between two poles – one around Washington and the other aligning with Beijing – might not be far off. 

Beijing Stands Ready

Donald Trump is yet to start his second term as US president, but Beijing has signalled in multiple ways that it is well prepared and will not shy away from taking any retaliatory measures where needed. As described above, China is using a multifaceted approach to message its position of strength not just to the US administration but also to the rest of the world. Although it is struggling with economic challenges, its recent actions – such as the anti-trust investigation of Nvidia and export controls on critical minerals – indicate that it has also grown ready to experience some pain itself in order to meet its strategic aims. 

Self-reliance has been a central policy concept for the Chinese Communist Party since the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, and it has sometimes been actively promoted, albeit less so during thaws in international relationships. Xi Jinping, however, has actively called for self-reliance, which entails strategic decoupling by decreasing dependences on – in particular – Western countries but also diversifying relationships so as not to be critically dependent on any one country.

In reality, Made in China 2025 is a visible example of China’s self-reliance policies. Just recently, Beijing also asked its companies to diversify their imports of US computer chips, while it also sanctioned 13 US defence firms in retaliation for recent US arms sales to Taiwan.

Although the purges in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may indicate that Xi Jinping doesn’t yet trust the PLA’s capability, particularly to unify Taiwan with force if needed, Beijing doesn’t hesitate to showcase its military might. China’s responses to any Taiwanese actions it views as separatist are immediate and increasingly strong. The most recent happened in December, when Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-te returned home from his visits to three Pacific island states with stopovers in Guam and Hawaii. As an expression of disapproval, China displayed its military strength by deploying 90 navy and coastguard ships in military activities in Taiwanese waters. Beijing insists that Lai Ching-te is banned from making overseas trips.

The increased pressure on Taiwan aims to exhaust the Taiwanese resistance and warn the US of China’s determination to defend its red lines militarily, hoping to make the US doubt whether Taiwan is worth defending.

In addition to showcasing China’s capabilities as an individual superpower, China and Russia have conducted over 100 different security and military drills together to date. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin repeatedly assert that the world has entered a ‘new era’, where their relationship serves as a model for great power relations. In reality, the two countries cooperate and coordinate not only in trade but also on military matters at multiple administrative levels. 

Together, China and Russia present a mighty adversary to the incoming Trump administration. To drive a wedge between China and Russia and to effect a ‘Reverse Kissinger’ may prove impossible: what could the Trump administration offer that would convince either Xi or Putin to step away from their quasi-alliance and trust their established nemesis? 

© Sari Arho Havrén, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author

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