Whether it is over TikTok, fentanyl or trade, Beijing might welcome a compromise to buy time to address its ailing economy and bolster its position globally.
As far as first salvos go, President Donald J. Trump’s threat of a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods in retaliation for China’s role in America’s fentanyl crisis could be interpreted in Beijing as encouraging.
Not only is it lower than the 60 percent duties Mr. Trump had said he would impose on key Chinese goods during his campaign, it also reaffirmed signals that the president was in the mood to negotiate with China. In his first two days in office Mr. Trump has also floated the idea of tying tariffs to the fate of TikTok. He has said he expects to be invited to China for a visit.
Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to make deals with China could give Beijing much-needed time and space to tackle its most pressing needs. That includes trying to turn around a stagnant economy and ease tensions with trading partners over China’s record trade surplus of nearly $1 trillion. Beijing has also been working to repair ties with American allies like Japan to try to weaken the security alliances forged by the Biden administration to constrain China.
Making headway on those fronts will help China strengthen its position in what has been a punishing superpower rivalry with the United States. Beijing ultimately wants the Trump administration to reset relations. It has argued that the United States should remove restrictions on Chinese imports of U.S. technology, stop supporting Taiwan, the self-governed island claimed by Beijing, and accept China as a peer power.
Beijing may be calculating that it can placate Mr. Trump, perhaps with a TikTok sale, a crackdown on fentanyl precursor producers, or a refresh of the trade deal Mr. Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, signed in 2020, analysts said.
“From an economic perspective, it’d be in Washington’s and Beijing’s interests to come up with some kind of a pseudo grand bargain that met both sides’ immediate political needs without sacrificing too much,” said Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.