BEIJING (Yomiuri Shimbun/ANN) — The administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping informed Communist Party members via text early this month that it is ready for a drawn-out confrontation with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, several sources in the party have told The Yomiuri Shimbun.
With the support of a gigantic domestic market, the Xi administration has clearly shown its willingness to engage in a battle of endurance and wait out pressure from the United States on such matters as trade conflict and security.
According to the sources, the text was compiled by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee — which is in charge of secretarial affairs for Xi, who is also party general secretary — and then sent to senior officials of the party’s central and regional bodies. As for China-U.S. trade friction, the text said, “We initially took the matter to be an economic issue and demonstrated our utmost sincerity, but then decided that the U.S. objective is to completely suppress China.”
The administration then emphasized that the United States had demanded it sign a document for an unfair agreement. “We won’t succumb to pressure. We have to come together to survive this situation,” the text said.
In response to a growing call within the United States to “get rid of China,” the administration has presented its policy of “self-reliance,” a slogan for national economic development proposed by Mao Zedong in response to the confrontation against the Soviet Union.
The message is seen to have the mark of Xi in its tone. The U.S. demands made of China will affect the basis of China’s Communist Party structure, which pursues state capitalism, such as by abolishing preferential treatment for government-owned companies.
By Naoki Ogawa and Takayuki Nakagawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondents
