Tuesday, April 08, 2025

Drawing the Discursive Battle Lines--The People Must be Protected From Abuse!: 人民日报评论员：集中精力办好自己的事 增强有效应对美关税冲击的信心 [People's Daily Commentator: Focus on doing your own things and strengthen confidence in effectively responding to the impact of US tariffs]

 

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When the Administration of President Trump flamboyantly announced its implementation of a new tariffs strategy for broader objectives (to reset the basis and parameters of global trade) it also set in motion (and perhaps deliberately) an equally important discursive battle over the normalization of a core set of baseline premises on which both U.S. strategies and the evaluation of responses could be authoritatively measured and understood. 

These multiple tracks suggest the broader context in which the tariff strategy might be understood (however one ultimately decides about its value or utility).  It has been clear (at least in discourse) that tariffs are not an outcome but an instrument (however correctly or badly deployed in the minds of those with an opinion). But an instrument of what? On one sense it focuses on the classical use of tariffs--to nudge domestic production vectors, protect local industry, and manage macro-economic objectives.  In another it is meant (effectiveness is another matter) to reset trade balances (and more traditionally (though in the U.S. with a volatile history in the 19th century U.S.) as a revenue (as well as a industry sector protective) measure.  More broadly, however, the tariff instrument, at least this time around, has broader substantive ambitions. These might include resetting the basic principles of trade (grounded on a to-be-fully-developed principle of reciprocity. It also is meant to reinforce a move toward something like a liberal democratic version of the Chinese win-win principle of international relations. (unequal agreements grounded in an equivalence of value measured differently by each party). That, in turn, reinforces the effort to reboot inter-governmental relations on a transactional basis--win-win and lets-make-a-deal produce an iterative, mimetic, inductive methods of accumulating action int principle that reflects, in a curious way, the fundamental logic and approaches of markets. 

This is all fodder for the second battle front--that of discourse and the management of the forms and frameworks that are naturalized within key elements of the population as the "correct" or "legitimate" approach to thinking about and evaluating action. That is, that the narrative front provides the scale against which actions, including these actions with transformative ambitions, may be measured. The stakes in the normative battle front are, in the long run, much more important, than the effects of transformative action that are meant to have short term (if significant) effect. The staying power of these changes require a collective belief in their value, and rewiring the ground rules against which future action is assessed. The Americans have tended to be good at action oriented behaviors in this administration; the Chinese appear more adept in the narrative front. Both will have to shift resources if they mean to prevail in the long run.

Some of these strands of the quite ambitious U.S. "tariffs" project can be seen in a recent  semi-official response of the Chinese authorities to the application of the tariff regimes to China, 人民日报评论员：集中精力办好自己的事 增强有效应对美关税冲击的信心 [People's Daily Commentator: Focus on doing your own things and strengthen confidence in effectively responding to the impact of US tariffs]. China, of course, is of special interest because their relations wit the U.S. will determine the template that will be applied more universally. The way they frame their actions, and deploy their resources against each other will help shape the new transformed space within which regional convergence systems can operate, and the ground rule principles for economic interactions between the emerging economic-political trading blocs. 

 The Chinese discursive position is quite interesting:

1. The Chinese take the position, quite correctly, that the American initiative  has gone against global trends (美国政府逆世界潮流而动). But that was not meant as a factual statement, but rather as a normative judgment. The idea is to reinforce not only that the tariff initiative is aberrational, but also contrary to the global ordering on which global stability is based. The underlying objective is to reinforce the connection between deviation from consensus and illegitimacy. From the U.S. perspective, of course, the opposite would be true--that the current consensus has become irredeemably corrupted and thus illegitimate and that the principle of reciprocity--the core principle of the old now corrupted system, must be preserved through new means. 

2. The illegitimacy of this deviant behavior is then given a name--tariff abuse (滥用关税). Discursively that works well, and aligns with criticism within the United States and its allied camp grounded in traditional arguments about the value of tariffs as a strategic tool or tariffs, generally as an illegitimate measure against which world consensus has been moving. 

3. The Chinese authorities then offer four points that are meant to counter the substantive ambitions of the tariff initiative but which also provide a discursive template for countering the norm shifting ambitions of that initiative:

A. The tariff strategy is a "paper tiger."  美滥施关税将对我造成冲击，但“天塌不下来”。此次美国政府对我加征34%的关税，加上此前加征的关税，将严重抑制双边贸易，短期内不可避免地对我出口造成负面影响，加大经济下行压力。[The abuse of tariffs by the United States will have an impact on China, but "the sky will not fall". The 34% tariff imposed by the US government on China, together with the previous tariffs, will seriously suppress bilateral trade, inevitably have a negative impact on China's exports in the short term, and increase the downward pressure on the economy.]

B. The tariff strategy will only make China stronger. 当前我国经济企稳向好，应对美关税冲击有底气、有信心。[At present, China's economy has stabilized and progressed, and we have the confidence to deal with the impact of US tariffs.]

C. The tariff strategy is no strategy at all and can be easily met by applying  current trade and global strategies against outlier states.  面对美滥施关税的乱拳，我们心中有数、手上有招。我们已与美国打了8年贸易战，积累了丰富的斗争经验。[In the face of the US's abuse of tariffs, we have a clear strategy in mind. We have fought a trade war with the United States for 8 years and have accumulated rich experience in that struggle. ]

D. The infection of the United States ought to be quarantined to ensure global stability and to protect the stability of other states.  坚定不移办好自己的事，以国内经济结构调整应对外部环境调整。[We will unswervingly handle our own affairs and respond to the external environment adjustment with the adjustment of domestic economic structure.]

E. When all else fails, or for win-win advantage, negotiate.   面对美方的多变易变、极限施压，我们没有关上谈判大门，但也不会心存侥幸，而是做好了应对冲击的各种准备。[In the face of the volatility and extreme pressure from the United States, we did not close the door to negotiations, but we will not be lucky, but have made various preparations to deal with the impact.]

 Abuse, containment, quarantine, appear to be the markers. It is only a matter of time before the imaginaries of disease come into play.  More effective, perhaps, will be the "paper tiger" variants that also play into the important propaganda vector that has, for a decade or more, sought to leverage the Western intellectual projects of "late stage" capitalism, decadence and the like to paint the U.S. a sa dying power, fundamentally illegitimate and consumed by its own contradictions, mow lashing out in increasingly dangerous though worthless ways. Containment of the threat before it becomes serious appears to be the essence of the discursive countermeasures. It only remains to see what or whether the U.S. responds. The difficulty, of course, is that for a transactional phenomenological state, one makes discourse in action rather than in text. That disjunction will have some interesting effects on the course of events in the next several years.

The full text of  人民日报评论员：集中精力办好自己的事 增强有效应对美关税冲击的信心 [People's Daily Commentator: Focus on doing your own things and strengthen confidence in effectively responding to the impact of US tariffs] follows below in the original CHinese and in a crude English translation.

 

人民日报客户端人民日报评论员2025-04-06 19:23浏览量998.7万

美国政府逆世界潮流而动，对包括我国在内的几乎所有贸易伙伴出台所谓的“对等关税”，我国第一时间采取了坚决有力的反制措施，引发全球高度关注。当前应客观分析美滥施关税对我影响，理性看待我国经济发展良好态势，坚定应对美这一轮遏压的信心。

（一）美滥施关税将对我造成冲击，但“天塌不下来”。此次美国政府对我加征34%的关税，加上此前加征的关税，将严重抑制双边贸易，短期内不可避免地对我出口造成负面影响，加大经济下行压力。

但要看到，中国是超大规模经济体，面对美国的关税霸凌冲击，我们具有强大的抗压能力。近年来我们积极构建多元化市场，对美市场依赖已在下降。我对美出口占全部出口的份额已从2018年的19.2%降至2024年的14.7%，对美出口下降不会对整体经济造成颠覆性影响。美国内不少产品对我依存度较高。当前美国不仅在很多消费品上离不开中国，很多投资品和中间产品也需要从中国进口，有若干品类依存度超过50%，短期内在国际市场上很难找到替代来源。在全球产供链深度交融的大背景下，中美贸易不可能完全中断。新兴市场经贸合作潜力巨大，日益成为我稳外贸的重要基础。我国是全球150多个国家和地区的主要贸易伙伴，2018年以来，我对东盟出口占比由12.8%提升到16.4%，对共建“一带一路”国家出口占比由38.7%提升到47.8%，且保持较快增长势头。国内市场缓冲空间广阔，是重要的大后方。据统计，2024年我有出口实绩的数十万家企业中，接近85%的企业同时开展内销业务，内销金额占销售总额的近75%。国家正加快打通“出口转内销”政策堵点、卡点，扩内需各项政策也在加力扩围，内需市场的容纳效应将日益显现。

（二）当前我国经济企稳向好，应对美关税冲击有底气、有信心。2017年美国挑起对华贸易战以来，无论美国怎么打、怎么压，我们始终保持发展和进步，展现了“越压越强”的韧性，这成为我们应对外部冲击的最大底气。经济循环不断改善。近年来我们持续优化供给、改善需求，畅通国内经济循环，经济内生动力明显增强。尤其是去年9月26日中央政治局会议后，随着一系列增量政策落实，国内经济持续回升向好。今年前两个月，投资、消费等国内需求增长好于预期，出口初步经受住了考验，制造业和服务业PMI持续回升，一季度有望实现5%以上的增长。科技赋能持续发力。我们抓住发展新质生产力这一最重要的供给，坚持以科技创新带动产业创新，在集成电路、人工智能、人形机器人等领域多点突破，展现了中国科技创新的巨大活力。“卡脖子”、打压遏制只会倒逼中国加快实现重点领域核心技术突破。风险缓释成效明显。近年来，我们顶住内外压力，坚持做困难而正确的事，持续化解房地产、地方政府债务、中小金融机构等重点领域风险。目前，三大风险得到有效控制，处于收敛状态。房地产市场交易和社会信心出现积极变化，一线城市回暖态势比较明显。各方预期不断改善。我国长期稳定的社会环境、不断优化的营商环境，咬定目标不放松、一张蓝图绘到底的政策连续性，为企业提供了长期稳定预期。今年以来，海内外对我国经济前景的看法明显改善，经济合作与发展组织等国际组织以及很多华尔街金融机构纷纷上调对我国经济增长的预测，看好中国资本市场，并将中国的“确定性”视为对冲美方“不确定性”的避风港。

（三）面对美滥施关税的乱拳，我们心中有数、手上有招。我们已与美国打了8年贸易战，积累了丰富的斗争经验。虽然国际市场普遍认为美滥施关税超预期，但党中央对美方对我实施新一轮经贸遏压已有预判，对其可能造成的冲击有充分估计，应对预案的提前量和富余量也打得较足。去年中央经济工作会议已经就如何应对美新一轮对华遏制打压作出全面部署，强调要充实完善政策工具箱，根据外部影响程度动态调整政策，加强超常规逆周期调节，提高宏观调控的前瞻性、针对性、有效性。今年全国两会上，我们出台的很多政策，如将今年财政赤字率确定为4%左右，运用国债资金扩大对“两新”“两重”的支持等都是超常规政策的具体体现。

未来根据形势需要，降准、降息等货币政策工具已留有充分调整余地，随时可以出台；财政政策已明确要加大支出强度、加快支出进度，财政赤字、专项债、特别国债等视情仍有进一步扩张空间；将以超常规力度提振国内消费，加快落实既定政策，并适时出台一批储备政策；以实实在在的政策措施坚决稳住资本市场，稳定市场信心，相关预案政策将陆续出台；各级政府将“一行一案”“一企一策”精准帮扶受冲击较大的行业和企业，支持企业调整经营策略，指导帮助企业在尽可能维持对美贸易的同时，开拓国内市场和非美市场。同时，我们将敦促美方纠正错误做法，以平等、尊重、互惠的方式，同中国和世界各国磋商，妥善解决贸易分歧。

（四）坚定不移办好自己的事，以国内经济结构调整应对外部环境调整。当今世界百年未有之大变局加速演进，美国关税政策进一步加剧全球政经格局走势的不确定性。作为负责任的全球大国，我们要变压力为动力，将应对美方冲击视为加快构建新发展格局、推动高质量发展、促进经济结构调整的战略机遇，以自身的稳定发展，为全球经济发展注入更多稳定性。面对高关税持续压缩对美贸易空间，我们更要把扩大内需作为长期战略，努力把消费打造成经济增长的主动力和压舱石，发挥超大规模市场优势。一方面，从需求侧入手，通过扎扎实实地推动居民增收减负，提高居民的消费能力与意愿；另一方面，从供给侧发力，加快全国统一大市场建设，改善营商环境，支持国内企业更多围绕老百姓的需求提供高质量产品和服务。

面对美方的多变易变、极限施压，我们没有关上谈判大门，但也不会心存侥幸，而是做好了应对冲击的各种准备。上下同欲者胜，风雨同舟者兴。我们有党中央的坚强领导，有集中力量办大事的制度优势，一定能够化危为机、行稳致远。正如习近平总书记所指出：“中国经济是一片大海，而不是一个小池塘”。这片大海经受得起狂风骤雨的洗礼，抵御得住贸易寒流的侵袭，终将让世人见证“海纳百川”的从容与坚定。

责任编辑：王萍萍

 

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