At the end of October, the Chinese Communist Party presented its action plan for the next five years, a practice repeated since the refoundation of the country in 1949. In Chinese style, it was an event without fireworks, but full of meaning. The official list of recommendations predicts that the country will face “strategic opportunities alongside risks and challenges, while uncertainties and unpredictable factors increase.”
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When Chinese leaders design their national strategy, it is in competition with the United States that both opportunities and risks are concentrated. Nearly a year after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the unpredictable winds blowing from Washington still send shivers down Beijing’s spine. But behind closed doors, we are rubbing our hands over the opportunities created by Trump’s decisions, from the boycott of multilateral efforts, such as COP30, to the trade war launched against the rest of the world.
For Indian analyst Manoj Kewalramani, who has been following the political dynamics emanating from Beijing for years, American withdrawal in several areas creates spaces that Chinese leaders have dedicated themselves to occupying. Starting with economic conflicts, but also in matters of defense and diplomacy. Inspired by intensifying geopolitical competition, Kewalramani this year launched “The Great Power Show” podcast, in which he speaks with experts looking for clues about where this race is over.
In economic diplomacy, while Trump uses tariffs as a means of blackmail, China takes the place that once belonged to the United States, as a defender of globalization. One of Beijing’s responses was to accelerate the negotiation of free trade agreements, believes the Indian analyst. China has already closed 23, involving 30 countries, and is negotiating at least five more. In 2025, amid the trade war triggered by Washington, Beijing attempted to expand the agreement with its largest trading partner, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), home to some of the countries hardest hit by Trump’s trade war.
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— Faced with an American attitude reminiscent of extractivism, China is positioning itself as a reliable economic partner, particularly for the developing world. In addition, US policies that devalue green technologies and the “America first” attitude when it comes to artificial intelligence open up space for Beijing not only to capture markets, but also to set standards – says the analyst.
If the technological race is at the center of the protest, artificial intelligence (AI) is its main domain. In July, the White House launched its AI Action Plan, making no secret of the goal: “Win the Race,” was the document’s subtitle. Three days later, it was China’s turn to present its vision, with the “Action Plan on Global AI Governance”. The document could not be more different from the American document.
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The Chinese version proposes cooperation and sharing, “but that doesn’t mean the country is not interested in taking the lead,” commented Charles Mok, a tech entrepreneur and former Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker. But that’s a plan for later, he said. The objective now, says Mok, is to “seduce the countries of the South so that they adopt the Chinese model”. Interestingly, Trump’s same hard line on trade authorized the sale of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips to China, reversing a policy the United States has maintained since the Cold War of restricting access to advanced technologies to strategic rivals. The idea is to make China dependent on American industry, but it may be too late. because Beijing’s goal is to boost the development of the domestic chip industry.
“China has transformed bottlenecks into a to-do list for scientific research and technological advancement,” retorts the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid linked to the Chinese Communist Party, in an editorial. Overcoming US restrictions has become a matter of national honor, turning boycotted businesses into martyrs. During a visit by Brazilian parliamentarians to a Huawei showroom in Beijing, the tech giant’s representative spoke with pride about how the company reinvented itself to manufacture its own chips, after almost stopping due to sanctions imposed under the first Trump administration (2017-2021).
Through massive planning and investment in research, China has in recent years become a world leader in several scientific fields, from quantum physics to biomedicine, semiconductors to space exploration. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which monitors global scientific performance, China leads in the development of 90% of critical technologies, “those that increase endanger a country’s national interest.”
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Ten years ago, the proportion was reversed: United States 90% and China 10%. According to the Nature magazine index, among the ten institutions that contribute the most to cutting-edge scientific journals, eight are Chinese (the American Harvard and the German Max Plank complete the top 10). This movement is not happening today, but China’s advance tends to increase with the cuts in funding for scientific research ordered by President Trump. It’s a “Sputnik in reverse,” lamented Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, a reference to the first Soviet satellite, from 1957, which encouraged Washington to boost science so as not to be left behind.
China does not want to replace the United States, but simply to be able to “offer public goods to the world,” international relations professor Wang Yiwei of Renmin University in Beijing tells GLOBO. Withdrawals from American diplomacy offer spaces that China can occupy, but in its own way. A clear example is the cancellation of aid programs from USAid, the American international development agency. But so far, China has not sought to provide U.S. aid in humanitarian projects in Asia or Africa, preferring to maintain its own functioning: infrastructure projects through the initiative known as the “New Silk Road.”
The Trump administration’s rejection of multilateralism has also given China a prominent role on a platform that it uses to bolster its image as a responsible power. The American boycott of the COP30 in Belém and the G20 summit in Johannesburg are clear examples of this. The US president’s denial has made China’s leadership in the fight against climate change more evident, said one of the country’s best-known environmentalists, Ma Jun. Not to mention Trump’s hostile attitude towards the green economy, Ma recalls, facilitating the lead that China has taken in energy transition industries.
But China’s growing multilateral role carries its risks, activists warn. A recent report from the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) highlighted efforts by a group led by China and Russia to block funding for human rights-related work at the UN. Consulted by GLOBO, the Chinese government denied the accusation, criticized the organization and described the report as “incoherent”.
For the Brazilian Raphael Viana David, Geneva director of the ISHR and author of the study, the document is based on two years of research, which included interviews with 37 diplomats from all continents and current and former employees of the United Nations, in addition to the analysis of dozens of reports and public budgets of UN bodies and texts resulting from diplomatic negotiations.
— This report only highlights the behavior of governments hostile to human rights, which have until today taken advantage of the opacity of technical committees and closed-door negotiations to exercise their influence — says David.
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