Thread by @neilthomas123

Mao said China would eclipse the US by 2030

In 1955: "Our goal is to catch up with and surpass the US ... it will take at least 50 years, perhaps 75, which is 15 five-year plans"

Xi just outlined China's 15th five-year plan. Can he prove Mao right?

Latest for @AsiaPolicy

1/

Probably not by the numbers—China's nominal GDP was only 64% of the US last year

But perhaps yes in substance—industrial might, tech self-reliance, and export controls helped Xi stare down US pressure this year

Chinese scholars are praising Mao's "strategic foresight"...

2/

But Xi still sees Trump as an agent of chaos and is preparing for a more turbulent world

April 2: 34% tariff on China
April 8: 84%
April 9: 125%

April 10: Beijing holds a "special meeting" to adjust its five-year planning in light of "changes in the external situation"...

3/

Beijing sees a connect between its recent Fourth Plenum on the five-year plan and Trump-Xi

"Major-power relations shape the international situation ... which profoundly influences domestic development"

The summit was a bid to secure strategic breathing room for Xi's agenda

4/

Xi's top goals for the five-year plan for 2026-2030 are "building a modernized industrial system" and "self-strengthening in science and tech"

He wants to ensure China can never again be coerced or contained by the US

With "extraordinary measures" on key core tech below!

5/

China will remain a high-capacity economy that puts producers over consumers

Tensions with other industrial economies—especially in Europe and North America—will intensify

China wants to dominate supply chains for future tech like it does now for EVs, batteries & solar

6/

Xi himself is concerned about overproduction causing ruinous price wars

But the plenum offered few convincing answers (yet) for curbing such "involution"

For Xi, the US is a cautionary tale of deindustrialization, so China's economy "must not shift from real to virtual"

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Key to Xi’s domestic agenda and US dealmaking is his political power

The plenum reaffirmed his control despite record purges and further centralization

E.g., share of cadre comments on plenum drafts then incorporated into final docs fell from 35.5% in 2010 to 21.4% in 2025

8/

So what kind of deal does Xi want with Trump?

Shortly after their summit, I went to a conference in NYC where half the room thought there'd be a "comprehensive" US-China trade deal by 2028

I was shocked

Xi wants a truce to buy time and build leverage, not a grand bargain

9/

Much more on the Fourth Plenum and US-China relations in my latest piece for the @AsiaPolicy Center for China Analysis, co-authored with Lobsang Tsering



10/10asiasociety.org/policy-institu…