Minxin Pei

Dec 3, 2024 | bloomberg.com | Minxin Pei

Beijing couldn’t take advantage of the US pullback from global leadership during the president-elect’s first term. It won’t this time either. The last time Donald Trump took power in the US, many wondered if China might fill the vacuum in global leadership left by his “America First” agenda. It ultimately didn’t — and there is even less reason to think it can do better this time.

Nov 27, 2024 | bloomberg.com | Minxin Pei

Donald Trump and the Tesla boss aren’t the first to take a wrecking ball to government. They’d be wise to learn from China’s tragic experience. President-elect Donald Trump and allies like Elon Musk delight in portraying themselves as governmental revolutionaries. But they are hardly the first leaders to attempt to blow up a “deep state” they see as coddled, inefficient, and ideologically opposed to their agenda. They’d be wise to consider the record of such heedless assaults more closely.

Nov 19, 2024 | bloomberg.com | Minxin Pei

The incoming Trump administration should build on and improve the multi-pronged strategy rather than scrap it. Joe Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping at a summit in Peru last weekend will almost certainly be his last as US president. Unfortunately for him, and perhaps for the US, history will have to grade his record on China as incomplete. When Biden came into office in January 2021, he continued in substance the de facto containment policy initiated during Donald Trump’s first term.

Nov 11, 2024 | bloomberg.com | Minxin Pei

While a tariff war seems almost guaranteed, the real danger is stumbling into a Cuban Missile-style standoff over Taiwan. Most observers expect that the biggest clash between China and a US led once again by Donald Trump will involve trade. The president-elect has vowed to impose 60% tariffs or higher on all Chinese imports. Prominent Republican senators want to cancel the mainland’s most-favored nation trading status. A trade war of such magnitude would indeed gravely injure China.

Oct 31, 2024 | bloomberg.com | Minxin Pei

Beijing thinks it can handle a return of the former US president without easing tensions with Europe and Japan. That’s a mistake. China is bracing itself for a second Trump administration. The former US president, who has a coin-toss chance of recapturing the White House, has vowed to raise tariffs on Chinese goods by at least 60%. Hobbled by an epic real estate bust, the mainland economy can ill afford a new trade war.