Politics

Xi Jinping tells China to prepare for long trade war with US

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his first domestic tour since a trade war broke out with the Trump administration, has told his people that they should be prepared for a long battle with the US.

“We are here at the starting point of the Long March to remember the time when the Red Army began its journey,” Xi said at a rally in Jiangxi province, the South China Post reported Tuesday.

“We are now embarking on a new Long March, and we must start all over again!”

The Long March was a military retreat between 1934 and 1936 by the Red Army, the forerunner of the People’s Liberation Army, to avoid Kuomintang troops during the Chinese Civil War, which the communists, led by Chairman Mao Zedong, eventually won.

Thousands of communist rebels traversed some of the harshest terrain in China, and the achievement is often cited by the Communist Party as a symbol of national unity.

Though Xi didn’t mention the US or the ongoing trade war, the remarks were seen as a clear signal that China was not going to cave to President Trump’s demands anytime soon.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, a top trade negotiator, accompanied Xi on the tour, the paper reported.

Trade negotiations between the world’s two largest economies have collapsed after Trump hiked tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent.

China retaliated by slapping tariffs on $60 billion of US goods — clothes, farm products and consumer electronics, among others — as high as 25 percent.

Chinese analysts said China was prepared to stop meetings altogether if Trump wasn’t “prepared to be realistic.”

The president and Xi plan to meet at the G-20 summit in Japan next month.