China’s propaganda machine is in full churn as Beijing ramps up all of the tools at its disposal to fight a public relations war with President Donald Trump. It may even have a chance to win.
In the two weeks since Trump launched what he called his “Liberation Day” tariff blitz, Chinese diplomats have taken to X and Facebook – platforms that are banned within China – to post archival footage of President Ronald Reagan deploring trade wars and former Chinese leader Mao Zedong declaring China’s determination to defeat the United States in the Korean War.
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Chinese state media have reposted a TikTok video made with AI that shows unhappy American workers sewing garments and assembling smartphones, with the caption: “Make America Great Again.” Several times a week, the state-run China Media Group has been sending personalized emails to reporters covering the trade war, offering them updates on China’s perspective.
For most of the past decade, Chinese officials have been trying to convince the world that China – with its state-controlled, notoriously protected economy – is the world’s true defender of free trade and globalization. Now, as Trump levies tariffs against some 90 countries and its relations with allies and trading partners grow tense, China has a rare opportunity.
“It is not so much a change in China’s propaganda tactics, but that Trump himself messed up, allowing China’s propaganda to score points,” said Deng Yuwen, former deputy editor of the Communist Party-affiliated Study Times, who now lives in the U.S. “The huge controversy caused by the Trump administration has allowed the Chinese government’s methods to win points.”
Over the trade war, China has matched Trump at each escalation, now levying import duties of at least 125 percent and restricting U.S. access to critical minerals needed for making high-tech machinery from weapons to electric cars. Trump has imposed tariffs of at least 145 percent on all Chinese goods, with exceptions for semiconductors and consumer electronics.
Rhetorically, Beijing has also hit back at every turn. When Vice President JD Vance said this month that the U.S. was borrowing money from “peasants in China” to then buy goods made by those same peasants, a senior Chinese official clapped back. “Let those peasants in the U.S. wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization,” said Xia Baolong, China’s top official overseeing Hong Kong and Macao affairs.
In some ways, China is operating by an old playbook: discredit the United States and stress how much China is a responsible global player and dependable partner.
In 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, Chinese leader Xi Jinping emerged as an unlikely defender of globalization as he gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, implicitly criticizing Trump’s emerging protectionism. This week, Xi is on a state tour of Southeast Asian countries, where he has also called for the multilateral trading system to be upheld.
Now, Beijing is also delivering that message in catchy short videos and snarky memes aimed directly at Americans. A video posted on Facebook earlier this month by Guo Jiakun, a Foreign Ministry official, featured images of stock market indexes crashing and streets full of American protesters, while a narrator intoned in English: “The so-called global beacon now puts America first. … With China here, the sky won’t fall.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, who along with Guo joined Facebook in February, posted an illustration of a “Make America Great Again” hat with a “Made in China” label attached. A price tag shows it has been marked up from $50 to $77 – reflecting Trump’s announced tariffs on Chinese goods, which was 54 percent at the time.
Analysts say that Chinese propaganda, historically heavy-handed and often clumsy, has shown some new signs of sophistication in response to Trump’s tariffs.
By posting videos of Reagan, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs used a conservative icon to criticize the Trump administration. In the video, the former Republican president says: “If our trading partners can’t sell their products here, they can’t afford to buy our exports. And that means more lost jobs for Americans.”
The video uses “America to attack America,” according to Wang Zhin-sheng, an assistant professor at the Central Police University in Taiwan who studies Chinese propaganda.
“That is, to use narratives that are familiar to Americans to attack the corresponding policies of the current Trump administration,” he said.
Another distinction of China’s recent propaganda push, Wang said, is how much it is targeting U.S. audiences, especially critics of Trump. By rallying opposition, Beijing – which, unlike other countries, has not rushed to negotiate with Trump – may be hoping that backlash builds to the point that the president backs down.
“In the past, we all thought that when China did a lot of external and internal propaganda, the audience was mainly the Chinese people. But this time it is very clear,” Wang said. “Its audience is clearly mainly the U.S., or to be more precise, the American people who also oppose Trump’s tariff war.”
Analysts say that this time, Beijing does not need to resort to misinformation to get its point across. Instead, the amount of dissatisfaction within the U.S. and in other countries gives China all the fodder it needs.
China “doesn’t need to create other narratives, and it doesn’t need to create false information. It only needs to amplify these voices of dissatisfaction,” said Li Weiping, a postdoctoral researcher focusing on disinformation in ethnic media in the U.S.
The use of videos of Mao – a symbol of resistance to U.S. imperialism – appeal to audiences at home as well as left-leaning critics of the U.S. elsewhere, she said. Meanwhile, the videos of Reagan appeal to those on the right.
“It’s saying, look we can all come together to resist America. America is our enemy,” she said, “There is so much material. If I were a Chinese propaganda worker, I’d definitely do a good job.”
Others have noted that the tone of Chinese diplomats and propaganda seems to have shifted as China’s aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy – the norm during Trump’s first term and most of the Biden administration – has been replaced by more dispassionate messaging.
“The spokespeople now seem to be less emotional and more under control. They are not trashing the U.S. But they are not saying anything complicated,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor in politics and East Asian studies at Washington and Lee University. He said the shift started before President Joe Biden met with Xi in San Francisco in 2023, a meeting that somewhat repaired deteriorated ties between the two countries.
“They are criticizing the U.S. as usual, but this time … it’s the U.S. that’s disrupting the international order and not China,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say that the current U.S. administration has been the greatest gift given to China’s external propaganda.”
Still, China’s overseas messaging is also about its domestic audience. As China prepares to weather the damage the tariffs will bring – at a time when many Chinese households do not feel confident about their economic futures – the messaging helps put the blame for China’s economic problems on the U.S.
“This round of propaganda is not only for external use, but also for internal use,” said Deng, the former Communist Party newspaper editor.
“It plays a big role in making the public more supportive of the government’s tough stance against the United States,” he said.
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Pei-Lin Wu in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, contributed to this report.
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