The Chinese people's capacity for suffering is legendary – but the times of heroic revolutionary determination are over

The political leadership in Beijing is nervous. On May 9, tariffs of 100 percent on all imports from China will take effect in the United States, in addition to existing tariffs. Communist Party Chairman and President Xi Jinping has hastily embarked on a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia to signal to Washington that they are by no means alone. A growing share of Chinese exports reach America via these very countries. A good relationship with them will help Beijing cushion the blow of Trump's frontal attack.

If Vietnam and Cambodia bow to Trump's pressure and label Chinese-origin products exported from their territory in a way that makes them easily identifiable for American tariffs, the situation will escalate. The same applies if Vietnam succeeds in concluding a free trade agreement with the US and, in turn, imposes tariffs on China. There are already initial signs that these concerns may be justified.

In Europe, speculation is rife about whether the US or the Chinese will prevail in the tariff war, whatever form it takes. Many favor China, believing the communist dictatorship to be more resilient than American democracy, better equipped to withstand the economic and social pain of a trade war.

And indeed, millions of Americans have already taken to the streets in protest against Trump, but in China, there have been no manifestations of discontent. In the face of resistance from business circles, the Trump administration was forced to grant most of the trading partners subject to tariffs a 90-day grace period – with the exception of China. And the Chinese side remains tough, too. With monolithic unity, the Beijing leadership refuses to back down in the "chicken game."

Neither the theory of China's capacity for suffering nor the argument of the West's weakness is new. Some even postulate that the People's Republic will never democratize because the Chinese have the ability to absorb all adversities without resistance. This implies that China's economy will not collapse even under the greatest pressure. Unlike the American economy, no matter how powerful it is.

On closer inspection, things become more relative.

For one thing, the resilience demonstrated by the Chinese through decades of ideological oppression and economic deprivation was based on factors that virtually no longer exist. For example, Chinese society is no longer structured along agrarian and cultural lines. Self-sufficiency in everyday goods was long achieved through a barter economy. Until the mid-1970s, 70 percent of Chinese lived in rural areas, and over 75 percent of economic output came from agriculture. As long as people had a livelihood, the emperor stayed away, and the people remained quiet.

Today, the ratio has reversed. With an urbanization rate of 65 percent, more Chinese live in cities than in rural areas. Self-sufficiency is no longer an option. Agriculture currently accounts for 16 percent of GDP. And China's dependence on exports is significant. The tariff conflict cost 20 million Chinese their jobs within just a few weeks. If you add the 1.1 people who depend on the income of a full-time worker, the degree of impact rises sharply. This does not include the job losses along the supply chain.

Leading think tanks such as the Guanghua Management Institute at Qinghua University are urgently warning that the already existing mass unemployment, which threatens to be exacerbated by Trump's tariff war, could lead to political instability. To illustrate the seriousness of the situation, they cite the 2010/11 revolution, which marked the beginning of the Arab Spring. Apparently, the experts see no reason to rely on the "systemic superiority" of socialism in China.

Supply routes have changed just as fundamentally. Until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the purchase and sale of all resources necessary for life and survival were centrally controlled by the Communist Party. Rationing coupons were common practice. This control was so effective that during the famine of 1958 to 1961, farmers and urbanites alike had little alternative but to wait for government handouts. Only a few were able to escape the hardship, and if they did, they didn't travel far. Roads and means of transport were scarce, and hardly anyone could survive without coupons.

Today, according to official statistics, 200 million Chinese people are on the move every day, searching for a way to earn a living. Regionally limited coupons have been replaced by a fully digitalized payment infrastructure. There's a joke that pickpockets have disappeared from Chinese streets because people now have to steal with the help of AI – digitally and beyond all control. And this despite the fact that online surveillance in China could hardly be any tighter.

Pressure on politicians is growing because the Chinese are increasingly less able to be pinned down. They are neither chained to the soil nor tied to a fixed job or place of residence. The effectiveness of political control is steadily declining.

Until the 1990s, state-run heavy industrial zones existed in northeastern China, generating sufficient employment, sufficient purchasing power, and stable urban sociotopes. However, the market-oriented development that began at the turn of the millennium attracted so many people to the south that the region is now literally depopulated, accompanied by an "industrial exodus to the south." All attempts at economic revitalization have failed. Those who remain lack prospects and social security. A rust belt à la chinoise is emerging, something Beijing must not take lightly.

The loss of control is increasingly spreading upwards through society. Because the capital, Beijing, with over 20 million inhabitants, is threatening to burst at the seams, the party decided to build an artificial city called Xiongan 200 kilometers south of Beijing. By government decree, over 250,000 people each year, all of them upper middle class, are ordered to relocate there. Ten years have passed, and many are resisting. Thus, Xiongan remains a ghost town and Beijing a bloated bureaucracy. The population in the capital continues to grow inexorably, but resources are lacking. Inflation is further putting people in a bad mood.

There are increasing signs that the government's most effective weapon to date for keeping China and the Chinese people resilient is losing its edge: the fanatical loyalty to the party and its leadership that characterized the Maoist decades. During the Cultural Revolution, hardly anyone dared to complain about hunger or torture – this was tantamount to high treason, punishable by death. Today, at the slightest sign of a crisis, high-ranking cadres and their families flee to the West, along with their assets. Communist Party members and officials no longer live up to the role models they claim to be.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, party-loyal communists were mobilized in major cities to enforce harsh measures such as lockdowns, mandatory testing, and compulsory vaccinations. At the end of 2022, when the party headquarters decided overnight to abandon controls and let things take their course, it was these same select forces who took to the streets of Shanghai in protest because they were denied salaries. Altruism looks different.

The party, however, has not failed to notice the loyalty crisis. At the end of June 2021, shortly before the Communist Party's 100th anniversary, its much-feared Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a sharp warning on its website. Under the title "The Pledge You Take When You Join the Party Has Consequences," the Central Committee under Xi Jinping published the gruesome story of Gu Shunzhang, the first high-ranking traitor from the 1920s. The punishment not only affected Gu personally, but also wiped out all of his friends and confidants. The message was: There is no mercy for those who oppose the party and its leadership.

The dissent does not stop at the Politburo itself. In 2023/24, five ministers were dismissed from the government personally selected by Xi Jinping, including Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu. And the internal purge continues unabated to this day. Most recently, it affected top military officials, especially in strategically important branches of the military, such as the missile force.

China is still capable of enduring suffering, but one should not imagine the country as being too united and too determined.