Shake Hands, Not Fists: Xi's Weapon in China's Trade War Game Plan

China is ahead on diplomatic points, but it is not entirely game over for the US.

- Tan Dawn Wei

When Chinese President Xi Jinping made his South-east Asian tour's first stop in Vietnam this week, high on the agenda was a proposed rail cooperation project for additional links between the two countries.

His Vietnamese counterpart To Lam had described the plan for enhanced rail connections as the "highest priority" in his country's strategic infrastructure cooperation with China.

The rail lines would enable Vietnam to plug into transcontinental rail networks and shorten shipping times to Europe where it wants to sell more agricultural products — an endeavor that might have gained primacy even as its officials negotiate with the US over the hefty 46 per cent tariffs it has been dealt.

The timing of Mr Xi's three-nation visit — he heads for Cambodia after his Malaysian stop — couldn't be more fortuitous.

South-east Asia is a region China has been diplomatically and economically wooing intensively in recent years.

Mr Xi's arrival shortly after the shock announcement of the Trump tariffs on April 2 provided a golden opportunity for him to strengthen ties with key countries in the region.

"In the face of external uncertainties, China will insist on shaking hands rather than shaking fists, tearing down walls instead of building barriers" was how a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman put it earlier this week. The metaphor points to the broader, high-stakes game being played between China and the US as they spar over tariffs and global clout.

For China's leaders, this contest is as much a battle over who has more and better hard, economic weapons, as it is of narrative-building at home and diplomacy abroad.

Domestically, it involves priming its citizens for hardships to come by extolling the virtue of fortitude and praising ahead of time their ability to beat Americans at "eating bitterness".