On 1 February, the United States announced its 10% tariff on Chinese goods, along with 25% on Canada and Mexico. The following day, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed that while China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes US tariffs, it would react but did not announce specific countermeasures other than referring the tariffs to the World Trade Organisation. China also denounced the US’s reason for the tariff as punishment for fentanyl entering the US from China, saying “fentanyl is a US problem”.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the tariffs created several Hot Search list-worthy topics. The topic “China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes (US tariffs)” (#中方强烈不满坚决反对#) topped the list with 90.09 million views. Fentanyl-related topics such as “the US once implored China to list all fentanyl-like substances as controlled substances” (#美方曾请求我国整类列管芬太尼类物质#), ranked number 4 with 38.94 million views.
Most netizens support retaliatory measures and believe it is an opportunity for China to appear on the world stage as the US threatens its allies (or vassal states to some). However, some also half-jokingly suggested dumping fentanyl if the US does not lift the tariffs. Interestingly, a significant portion of comments in the hot posts do not particularly differentiate President Donald Trump’s new measure from the previous administration and accuse America as a whole of disrupting the world order. In fact, it seems to be consistent with their impression of the US as a disruptor of an otherwise peaceful world.
One netizen’s analysis is particularly insightful. China is pulling its punches to not become a “main character” of the current trade dispute and to avoid acceleration, that is why Beijing opted to appeal to the WTO and let the US v Canada and Mexico (and possibly the EU) play out and reshape the world order. While the Chinese stock markets are not yet open, the “China concept stock” in the US did react to the tariffs by dropping 3.3% on its last trading day while offshore RMB also dropped. On 4 February, China announced its raft of countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs of 15% on imports of coal and LNG from the US.
