Tensions have been simmering between the United States and communist China as the two countries escalate tariffs on each other’s imports. Meanwhile, Beijing’s rhetoric has become increasingly confrontational.
In early March, the Chinese Embassy in Washington shared a social media post from its Foreign Ministry, repeating its message: “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
To this day, China remains the primary source of fentanyl precursors, which are shipped to Mexico, where they’re manufactured into the illicit drug. It is then smuggled into the United States mainly via the southern border.
In response to Trump’s added tariff, Beijing imposed an additional 15 percent tariff on U.S. coal and natural gas and an extra 10 percent on agricultural equipment and pickup trucks.
Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at Peking University in China who now lives in Australia, said the U.S. opioid epidemic is far from the self-inflicted wound the CCP has suggested it is.
Yuan, who has insider access to senior CCP leaders, said Xi has consistently given internal directives during both Trump’s first and second terms that Beijing must maintain the narrative that the drug crises in both Europe and the United States are not linked to China.
Yuan said the regime has also been directed by Xi to assert that China makes the chemical precursors legally and that if they are converted into deadly drugs and smuggled into the United States or Europe, it is not China’s responsibility.
The China expert further stated that fentanyl is at the core of Xi’s bid to “take revenge” on the West. He said Xi blames the West for subjecting China to a century of humiliation as a result of the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century. During that time, China had to sign a series of treaties that ceded Chinese territory and opened Chinese ports to foreign control.
“It is precisely due to Xi’s directives that we are now seeing a dramatic increase in both the production of fentanyl precursors in China and the export of these chemicals, fueling the ongoing fentanyl crisis in the United States,” Yuan said.
The fentanyl crisis has become a key concern among American voters and has become one of the driving forces behind the dynamics of U.S.–China relations, according to China expert Alexander Liao.
He said relations between Beijing and Washington have fundamentally changed. During the Biden administration, the two countries went through a diplomatic “ice age,” when senior-level official communication froze for approximately 10 months in 2022 and 2023. However, Liao said he believes that the confrontation has now escalated to a new level.
“Whether it’s trade or other aspects, the United States and China have basically turned against each other,” Liao told The Epoch Times.
“Little noise but fierce action” is how he categorizes the current state of things between Beijing and Washington, in contrast to the “big arguments and little action” going on between the United States and Europe.
US Makes Perfect Enemy for Chinese Regime
Over the past decade, China saw significant economic growth. Its nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is now more than three-quarters of that of the United States, according to data from the World Bank. When measured by purchasing power, China’s economy surpassed that of the United States in 2016.Xi rose in the CCP ranks a few years before that and in 2013 took over its leadership.
According to Yuan, Xi’s communist nature drove him to immediately cash in on China’s economic strength to establish a foreign policy program, the Belt and Road Initiative, aimed at expanding communist totalitarianism around the world.
Xi’s hallmark political slogan is “realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Xi’s drive for Chinese dominance begins with the country’s decline 200 years ago. In the CCP’s book, the West is to blame for turning China from a winner to a loser in the world. The communist regime’s education system and propaganda frequently emphasize the Opium Wars as the beginning of the “Century of Humiliation.”
Xi has said that taking back Hong Kong and Macau from the United Kingdom and Portugal, respectively, “washed off the humiliation of a century” and that the next step is to unify Taiwan with the Chinese mainland.
Despite the appearance of promoting nationalism, Liao said, Xi’s logic remains rooted in communist doctrine in pursuing the global spread of communism—or in the Party’s parlance, to “stake the red flag all over the world.”
This naturally makes the United States the CCP’s No. 1 enemy, Liao said. As Taiwan’s protector and leader of the current world order, the United States poses the single largest roadblock to Xi’s plans.
The CCP has used China’s decades of rapid economic growth to justify its rule. However, Xi’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown measures exacerbated long-running problems in its debt-fueled, supply-driven economy. After the lockdowns were lifted, the plunging property market and cash-strapped local governments have left the economy in stagnation.
Xi’s End Game
Xi’s end game, Yuan said, is to “replace the United States as the underwriter and enforcer of the world order.” Yuan said he and Xi used to drink together when Xi was still a provincial-level power figure.
In 2017, when Beijing knew China had surpassed the United States in GDP measured by purchasing power, Xi and his cohorts believed that the “American problem” would be solved—by China’s replacing the United States as the world’s superpower—within a decade, according to Liao.
Liao said that his insider sources in Beijing told him that an optimistic mood rose within the CCP, resulting in a dismissive attitude toward the United States among party leaders.
“In that climate, the hardliners within the CCP essentially set themselves on an irreversible path of confrontation with the United States,” Liao said.
The United States’ failure in curbing its drug epidemic has also bolstered Xi’s pride and confidence, Yuan said, adding that Xi sees the U.S. fentanyl crisis as proof that “the East is rising, the West is declining.”
According to Liao’s sources, during Trump’s first state visit to China in November 2017, a high-ranking CCP official told Trump, “You just need to provide us with raw materials and a consumer market for our manufacturing.”
A Beijing insider told Liao that this encounter prompted Trump to initiate tariffs on China as soon as he returned to Washington. The source said that the Chinese official’s arrogance and condescending tone likely left Trump feeling deeply uneasy that U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing was getting out of hand.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
In January 2018, Trump began setting tariffs on Chinese imports to reduce the trade imbalance and force China to stop its theft of U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property.
Two years later, Beijing and Washington signed a phase one trade agreement under which China promised to buy more U.S. products.
Two months later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Trump has been speaking of April 2 as the United States’ “liberation day,” on which he will impose reciprocal tariffs to level the field with all its trade partners. A likely outcome is that the White House will impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports.
The Chinese economy is weaker than it was during Trump’s first term and is more reliant on exports.
“It’ll be difficult to have any conversation about tariffs and non-tariff barriers until the fentanyl precursor issue is resolved,” he said.
Regardless of what concessions Beijing proposes to Trump at a potential Trump–Xi summit in June, the two countries are on an “inevitable” collision course, Yuan said.
“It is not a temporary conflict sparked by a single event, whether it’s tariffs or any other specific issues,” he said. “The confrontation is fundamental and unavoidable, driven by larger, long-term forces.”
