Xi running ‘The Art of War’ circles around Trump

Donald Trump and the Republican Party like to cast themselves as hawks on China.

Yet in his second term, Trump’s approach has been more bluster than bite—often retreating after tough talk and increasingly looking like a paper tiger. Beijing, by contrast, has kept its cool and, time and again, seized the initiative on major issues.

“The Art of War“, Sun Tzu’s ancient Chinese manual on strategy and leadership, has shaped thinking on conflict and power for more than two millennia. Its lessons are as relevant in today’s geopolitical rivalry as they were on the battlefield.

Seen through this lens, Trump’s China strategy reveals a series of costly missteps.

Sun Tzu’s most enduring lesson is simple: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Strategy starts with a clear-eyed view of both sides’ strengths and weaknesses.

Trump ignored that advice. On the campaign trail, he boasted that steep tariffs would bring Beijing to its knees. But China had already learned from the first trade war and was ready for a rematch.

He misjudged Beijing’s resolve to strike back, overlooked how deeply US businesses and consumers depended on Chinese manufacturing, and failed to see rare earths coming as a pressure point.

The gamble quickly turned against Washington. The tariffs hurt the US economy, forcing Trump to call Xi Jinping to seek a truce—a move that burnished Xi’s global image and fueled nationalism at home, giving Beijing more leverage at the table.

China’s response followed another of Sun Tzu’s maxims: “Strike where they are unprepared.” Beijing targeted US farm exports and manufacturing hubs, hitting Trump’s political base directly.

It tightened controls on rare earth exports, putting the squeeze on America’s tech and defense sectors. The pressure worked. Trump slowed his tariff plans, softened technology export restrictions and even blocked Taiwan’s president from passing through the United States to avoid a clash with Beijing.

Losing the moral high ground and alienating allies

Another major misstep has been Trump’s dismantling of America’s global alliance network—Washington’s greatest long-term asset.

Sun Tzu’s warning that “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks” applies as much to geopolitics as to the battlefield. Unity means not just coherence at home, but trust and cooperation abroad. Trump has eroded both.

Domestically, his second-term agenda has fueled accusations of democratic backsliding, sparked nationwide protests, and deepened political polarization—undermining the values that once gave the United States moral authority.

Abroad, “America First” has often meant pulling America out: quitting the Paris Climate Accord, walking away from the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, threatening NATO partners, cutting foreign aid, and slapping tariffs on allies as if they were adversaries.

Each move chipped away at US soft power and left friends questioning whether Washington could still be counted on.

Beijing has wasted no time exploiting the opening. Through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative, China has positioned itself as a “responsible major power” on trade, climate, and development. Since Trump’s return to office, global surveys show China’s image improving while America’s has slid.

Worse, Trump’s rhetoric and moves on flashpoint issues—from the Russia–Ukraine war to the Panama Canal to Greenland—have openly defied the postwar norms of territorial sovereignty.

The backlash has been swift, feeding China’s propaganda machine and reinforcing its narratives about “US hegemony” and “unjust alliances.” In the battle over global perception, Beijing has seized the high ground.

Regaining lost ground

Against a disciplined and calculating rival, Washington cannot afford to govern by impulse or chase short-term political wins.

It needs to return to a basic rule of strategy: knowing yourself and knowing your enemy. That means taking an honest measure of both sides’ strengths and weaknesses, playing to America’s advantages and targeting China’s vulnerabilities.

The trade war is a case study in getting that balance wrong. America’s economy is acutely sensitive to election cycles, corporate lobbying, and consumer price fears—pressures Beijing’s political system doesn’t face. Tariffs that ignore this dynamic only give China the edge in resilience and staying power.

In technology competition, however, America still holds decisive advantages: world-class universities, a deep bench of innovative talent, and a wide network of allies.

The smarter play is to harness those strengths—building coordinated tech controls with partners rather than relying on go-it-alone tariffs. The Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach to semiconductors is a step in that direction.

Both systems have inherent strengths and flaws. China’s authoritarian model delivers consistent long-term strategy and can absorb economic shocks, but it lags in innovation, struggles to keep top talent, and lacks anything close to America’s global alliance network.

The US, by contrast, thrives on the creativity and self-correction that democracy enables—yet too often sacrifices long-term strategic goals for short-term political wins. Prevailing in this rivalry will require discipline: doubling down on America’s advantages while applying steady, targeted pressure on China’s weaknesses.

Striking the unprepared: Trump’s strategic edge

As Sun Tzu observed, “Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.” Donald Trump’s unpredictable style in office once gave him a genuine advantage of this kind. His first term offered vivid proof.

In November 2017, Trump visited Beijing to a reception of extraordinary warmth and ceremony. Both Chinese officials and outside observers assumed the visit would help stabilize US

–China relations. Yet less than six months later, in March 2018, Trump launched an unprecedented trade war against China, catching Beijing off guard. The following month, his administration imposed sanctions and restrictions on Chinese technology giants Huawei and ZTE. This sequence of moves—swift, forceful, and unforeseen—left Beijing reeling and amounted to a strategic win for Washington at the time.

But this approach only works when the strike delivers both real damage and genuine surprise—something that requires a thorough prior understanding of each side’s strengths and weaknesses. By the time Trump moved to revive the trade war in his second term, Beijing had long since fortified its defenses. The element of surprise was gone.

Instead, it was China that wielded its own “unprepared strike”—deploying the rare-earths card as leverage, a move that blindsided Trump and marked a clear instance of Beijing turning Sun Tzu’s dictum to its own advantage.

Transactional and short-sighted

In today’s US–China rivalry, Trump has squandered America’s systemic and alliance advantages, ceding ground to Beijing in areas where it excels. China’s grip on the strategic tempo—and its ability to keep the bigger picture in view—is increasingly clear.

As The Art of War notes, “One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.” Victory can be foreseen but not manufactured at will. It demands long-term planning and disciplined execution.

Trump’s China policy has been transactional and short-sighted, treating foreign affairs as a string of quick political deals rather than a coherent grand strategy.

His unpredictability may occasionally catch Beijing off guard, but without a plan grounded in the principle of “know yourself and know your enemy,” it only reinforces the image of a blustering paper tiger—tough on the weak, timid toward the strong.

Linggong Kong is a PhD candidate in political science at Auburn University, where his research focuses on international relations, China’s grand strategy and Northeast Asian security. His commentaries have been published or republished in The Conversation, The Diplomat, Asia Times, China Factor, and Newsweek Japan, among others.