China vs. U.S. tariffs: Defending the right to global growth

By Ge Lin

Consumers line up in a corner waiting to buy cheaper eggs in a Costco store in Los Angeles, U.S., April 4, 2025. /CFP

When the United States reaches for tariffs as its first language of diplomacy, it reveals more than a trade imbalance – it exposes a fear of global economic reordering, especially from the rise of economies once dismissed as peripheral. In this moment of escalated pressure, China’s response is not just about defending its own position, but about upholding a global trading system that keeps the path open for smaller and less developed countries. While one side seeks to freeze the ladder behind it, China reinforces the scaffolding that lets latecomers keep climbing.

Comparative advantage should evolve, not be used to block latecomers’ path to ascent

The global division of an industrial chain has long been couched in terms of David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage. But it has treated this economic principle less as a dynamic analytical tool and more as a permanent assignment of roles – locking developing countries into positions as raw material providers or low-end manufacturers. What is often omitted is that comparative advantage is inherently evolutionary.

The very idea that comparative advantage can shift is not controversial in theory, but it is politically inconvenient in practice. In the early 20th century, the U.S. itself rose from being a commodity exporter to the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. China, following a similar trajectory, has upgraded its industries through sustained technological investment. When economic globalization facilitated the reallocation of capital, labor and knowledge, new advantages emerged.

Now, Washington’s efforts to arrest these shifts – by halting globalization and freezing factor mobility – are effectively demands to preserve the existing hierarchy. It is like insisting that every athlete in a race must maintain their current distance from the leader, regardless of training, effort or changing conditions. Such a move institutionalizes inequality and denies latecomers their developmental rights.

China’s connectivity efforts help activate latent comparative advantage in less developed countries

China’s commitment to the multilateral trading system stems from a pragmatic understanding: Connectivity is the foundation of opportunity. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can be viewed more fundamentally as a correction to an economic asymmetry.

Many less developed countries possess latent comparative advantages, but lack the infrastructure to turn that potential into meaningful participation in global trade. The BRI helps close this gap by investing in hard infrastructure networks and soft institutional frameworks that make cross-border cooperation economically viable.

A stewardess stands next to the train to Mombasa at Nairobi Terminus Station of the China-built Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Nairobi, Kenya, September 20, 2023. /Xinhua

More broadly, China resists the fragmentation of global supply chains and instead supports a more inclusive architecture. A piece of rubber produced in Southeast Asia no longer needs to exit the region as a commodity; it can become a component of advanced medical devices manufactured locally. This shift is not just industrial – it is institutional. It signals a multilateral, rules-based system where smaller economies are not permanent peripheries but evolving nodes in global value creation.

As the Chinese proverb says, “It’s better to enjoy happiness together than alone.” In economic terms, shared industrial upgrading is the modern expression of that wisdom.

China’s countermoves against U.S. pressure reflect a deeper logic: Wisdom forged over millennia

When the United States turns to tariffs as a tool of economic suppression and decoupling, China’s responses reflect not mere retaliation, but a strategic temperament shaped by millennia of civilizational experience – a deep understanding of human nature accumulated over thousands of years.

The logic behind China’s countermeasures resembles the strategic wisdom found in Su Xun’s “On the Six States” (“Liu Guo Lun”) around 1,000 years ago, where concessions made to appease short-term threats only hasten long-term losses. “Today you cede five cities, tomorrow ten, and in return gain another night of restful sleep – only to awaken next morning and find Qin’s armies once again at the borders.” This is recognition that strategic ground, once surrendered without reciprocity, rarely flows back.

To defend globalization is not to defend the past, but to safeguard the future. The global flow of capital, labor and knowledge is not merely a mechanism of efficiency, but an enabler of human potential.

The right to rise: Rethinking globalization and comparative advantage

Globalization, if structured inclusively, is not a zero-sum game. It is a generational compact, one that affirms every country’s right to develop, specialize and evolve. By emphasizing co-construction and mutual benefit, China offers an alternative to the “core-periphery” trap of static comparative advantage. The real contest in the global economy is not over who dominates current technologies, but over who defines the architecture that allows tomorrow’s latecomers to rise.

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