by Sasha Gong
China projects strength abroad, but internal purge politics, economic strain, and structural dependence suggest a far more fragile system than it appears.
As Donald Trump prepares for another high-stakes meeting with Xi Jinping, conventional wisdom in Washington and the international press insists that the American president is entering negotiations from a position of weakness. Xi, after all, rules China as a near-absolute leader with no election to fear, no opposition party to challenge him, and a state apparatus capable of moving swiftly and decisively. Trump, by contrast, faces elections, court challenges, media scrutiny, and political resistance at every turn. As Sen. Jack Reed, a leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, “President Trump is going into this meeting terribly weakened.”
But conventional wisdom is often wrong.
The dominant narrative assumes Trump desperately needs China on three fronts: Iran, Taiwan, and trade. The conflict involving Iran threatens global oil markets and gasoline prices that could politically hurt Republicans before the midterms. Taiwan remains the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. And after legal setbacks to his tariff policies in American courts, Trump appears to have less leverage in a trade confrontation than he did several years ago.
Meanwhile, many observers continue to portray China as an unstoppable superpower—the center of global manufacturing, the future leader in artificial intelligence, and a country whose supply-chain dominance leaves America dependent and vulnerable.
Yet this picture ignores a more important reality: authoritarian systems are often far weaker and more unstable than they appear from the outside. One need only look at the former Eastern Bloc.
Western analysts frequently mistake dictatorship for strength. In truth, dictatorship is often the most unpredictable form of government because nobody truly knows what is happening inside the black box.
Xi Jinping’s recent purge of top military officials should have served as a warning sign to the world. Sentencing senior military leaders to what amounts to life imprisonment is not evidence of confidence; it is evidence of insecurity. Over the past several years, Xi has systematically removed generals, ministers, and senior party officials—many of them his own appointees. Such behavior does not suggest a stable regime at ease with itself. It suggests mounting internal distrust.
China’s economy also tells a very different story from the triumphant narrative often repeated abroad.
Anyone who speaks honestly with ordinary Chinese citizens or business owners knows the economic situation is bleak. In recent years, growth has slowed dramatically. Youth unemployment remains severe. Real estate—once the backbone of Chinese household wealth—has become a liability. Consumer confidence is weak, private investment is shrinking, and local governments are drowning in debt, to the point that many officials and bureaucrats have had to accept severe pay cuts.
Most importantly, China’s export-driven model is beginning to crack.
For decades, China relied heavily on access to the American market. But Trump’s trade policies accelerated a process already underway: diversification away from China. Manufacturing is increasingly moving to Vietnam, India, Mexico, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Supply chains once centered almost entirely in China are gradually being redistributed across the world.
Ironically, China’s greatest strength—its overwhelming concentration of industrial production—may also have created its greatest vulnerability. The more the world feared dependence on China, the harder countries worked to reduce that dependence.
That is why the assumption that America needs China as much as China needs America may no longer hold true.
On Iran, the imbalance may be even clearer. Much of the American media portrays Trump as desperate to end the conflict. But China arguably has far more at stake. Beijing purchases the overwhelming majority of Iran’s oil exports. The Chinese Communist Party has long maintained strategic stockpiles in preparation for geopolitical disruptions, but prolonged instability in the Middle East threatens China’s energy security far more directly than America’s.
The United States, by contrast, has significantly expanded domestic energy production in recent years. Global supply routes can adjust. China’s dependence on imported energy cannot.
Taiwan presents a similar illusion. China boasts the world’s largest navy by ship count, and many commentators interpret this as proof of overwhelming military superiority. Yet sheer quantity does not equal combat capability. Indeed, the rapid expansion of China’s military may itself reflect entrenched, large-scale corruption. Xi’s purges reveal how little trust exists within the command structure.
Even Chinese strategists privately understand that the People’s Liberation Army still has significant weaknesses compared with American military technology, logistics, and operational experience. Public propaganda may project confidence, but internal caution tells another story.
What Xi Jinping may need most from a summit with Trump is not strategic advantage, but legitimacy.
For authoritarian rulers, international prestige matters enormously. A highly publicized meeting with an American president reinforces Xi’s domestic image as a respected global statesman. It projects stability, authority, and international recognition at a time when economic difficulties and elite tensions are growing inside China.
Trump, meanwhile, operates differently. His style often confuses both American elites and foreign observers. He praises rivals publicly while pressuring them privately. He flatters while negotiating aggressively. Critics view this as inconsistency, but in business, the combination of personal warmth and strategic ruthlessness is hardly unusual. Chinese political culture, in fact, may understand this style better than many Western diplomats do. After all, flattering rivals while simultaneously undermining them is a well-established feature of elite Chinese politics.
There is no question that Trump—or the United States—needs Xi Jinping and China. China remains a major global power and an indispensable part of the geopolitical puzzle.
But Xi Jinping may need Trump far more.
Trump can politically survive without Xi. America can absorb economic friction, energy shocks, and strategic competition. Xi Jinping, however, governs a slowing economy, a nervous elite, and a political system whose greatest weakness is that few inside it dare to speak honestly.
Behind the image of strength may lie a regime far more fragile than the world wants to believe.
Photo: US President Donald Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping greet each other as they arrive for talks at the Gimhae Air Base, located next to the Gimhae International Airport in Busan on October 30, 2025. Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will seek a truce in their bruising trade war on October 30, with the US president predicting a "great meeting" but Beijing being more circumspect. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
Sasha Gong
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/05/12/who-really-needs-whom-trump-xi-jinping-and-the-illusion-of-chinese-strength/
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