The war of words — and trade — between Washington and Beijing took a fresh turn Thursday when a Chinese diplomat declared that her compatriots “don’t back down,” sharing a video of Mao Zedong condemning the United States to underscore her point.
China, the world’s second-biggest economy and one of the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, has matched President Donald Trump tariff for tariff in recent days. Its latest levies on U.S. goods took effect Thursday, totaling 84%.
As other countries scramble to offer Trump concessions in exchange for tariff reductions, China’s more combative approach has drawn the president’s ire. On Wednesday, citing China’s “lack of respect” for global markets, Trump raised U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to 125%, even as he announced a 90-day pause on higher targeted tariffs on all other U.S. trading partners.
China responded Thursday that while it does not want to fight a trade war, it also won’t shy away from one.
“We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down,” Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry, said Thursday in a post on X.
The post also included archival footage of Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic of China, speaking in 1953 when the U.S. and China were on opposite sides of the Korean War.
“As for how long the war should last, I think we shouldn’t decide that,” says the former Chinese leader Mao, who led the country for more than a quarter of a century until his death in 1976.
“In the past, it was decided by Truman. In the future, it will be decided by Eisenhower — or whoever the president of the United States may be. In other words, they can fight for as long as they want — until China’s complete victory,” he continues in the video, which is subtitled in Chinese and English.
In another apparent reference to Trump’s tariffs, the spokesperson also shared an illustration of a “Make America Great Again” hat — which is made in countries such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh — bearing a “Made in China” label and sitting above a $50 price tag crossed out and replaced with $77.
A hashtag about the Mao Zedong post was trending Thursday on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform.
“We shouldn’t hold on to any illusion that America will go easy on China,” one user wrote. “Let Trump make the call — however long they want to fight, we’ll fight.”
The Chinese Commerce Ministry did not say whether it would further raise tariffs on U.S. goods in response to Trump’s latest increase. The door to talks “is always open,” a spokesperson said Thursday, “but any dialogue must be based on mutual respect and conducted on equal footing.”
Underlying such comments is China’s history of exploitation by Western nations, memories of which remain searing even as China has leveraged globalization to become the world’s largest trading nation in goods.
Even though U.S. and Chinese tariffs are already at “trade-prohibitive” levels, Trump’s public calls to negotiate are unlikely to work with China, said Rick Waters, a former State Department diplomat who is now the Singapore-based director of Carnegie China.
“The Chinese are proud. They have a history of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers,” he said. “And I think those types of tactics play into their defensive instincts.”
The Foreign Ministry’s office in Hong Kong, a former British colony whose 1997 return to Chinese rule marked the end of what is referred to in China as a “century of humiliation,” said Trump’s actions “won’t make America great again — they’ll only turn the U.S. into a 21st-century barbarian.”
“Those who try to strong-arm the world with tariffs and expect countries to call and admit defeat should never count on getting a call from China,” it said.
Waters said that while he thinks Trump is “sincere in a desire to explore some kind of a deal with the Chinese,” such a deal may be a long way off.
“I think until the two sides feel they have to come to the table, they’re going to let the other stew in their juices,” he said.
