China’s biggest Trump 2.0 threat would be changes led by Elon Musk, adviser warns

Greatest pressure to ‘come from changes within the US’, Zheng Yongnian says, urging China to expand opening up as a countermeasure

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Elon Musk jumps on stage as he joins then presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in the US state of Pennsylvania in October. Photo: TNS

Published: 6:26pm, 23 Nov 2024

China’s biggest risk during Donald Trump’s second term as president would be US government overhauls driven by tech billionaire Elon Musk, a leading Chinese political scientist and policy adviser to Beijing has warned.

As a countermeasure, China should expand unilateral opening-up measures towards countries including the United States, Zheng Yongnian, dean of the School of Public Policy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Shenzhen campus, said on Saturday.

The principle of “who is more open than whom” was key to gaining leverage in the US-China rivalry, Zheng told the Baichuan Forum hosted by the university’s Institute for International Affairs (IIA).

China’s economy and trade were likely to face “significant shocks” in the short term after Trump returned to the White House, but geopolitical pressures might ease, Zheng said.

Zheng Yongnian says Donald Trump may damage bilateral ties with tariffs but “he does not actually want to go to war with China”. Photo: CUHK-Shenzhen

Trump’s expected wielding of the “tariff stick” against China under his “America First” policy approach would not only “maximally” damage bilateral relations but also sabotage the international trade system, he added.