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Geopolitics
Why China is well-equipped to deal with disruption
China’s shift from reaction to reinvention is a long-running transformation built on policy foresight and internal restructuring that global turmoil and the tariffs war have only served to intensify.
When BYD Executive Vice-President Stella Li said China was “the homeland for innovation”, she wasn’t just talking about the dynamism of its electric vehicle market but also making a case for China’s economic model.
In Li’s view, foreign companies should see China, not as a fortress, but as an opportunity for growth and innovation. “The Chinese government is more open, so maybe there are a lot of wrong perceptions here,” she told the Financial Times.
Just weeks later, the US unveiled new tariffs of up to 54% on Chinese imports, alongside a 10% levy on other global goods, escalating to 125%, with some carveouts for sectors like automobiles, critical minerals, energy products, and consumer electronics. In Washington, it was framed as a hard line. However, it was business as usual in Beijing, or rather, business redesigned.
Then, in a symbolic meeting in Geneva, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng struck a temporary truce: both countries agreed to reduce their respective tariffs, with US duties dropping from 145% to 30% and China cutting from 125% to 10% for a 90-day period.
While markets rallied, the structural issues underpinning the trade conflict remain unresolved. This is a 90-day breather, not a breakthrough. For Chinese firms, it only reinforces the importance of agility, scenario planning, and long-term resilience over short-term relief.
Over the past three decades, China has weathered its share of crises: financial shocks, pandemics, and escalating geopolitical headwinds. Yet what has driven its trajectory isn’t external turbulence, but mounting internal imperatives: rising labor costs, demographic transitions, and the natural limits of an export-led growth model. Through it all, China has maintained a relentless commitment to long-term transformation.
The latest round of US tariffs is undoubtedly disruptive. It adds friction to an already tense global environment and puts near-term pressure on exporters and supply chains. But it doesn’t fundamentally alter China’s destination. The structural shifts we’re seeing now – from monetary recalibration to a tighter integration of industrial and trade policy – were already underway.
For China, this isn’t a crisis; it’s a forcing function that reinforces the direction of travel. This shift from reaction to reinvention is a long-running transformation built on policy foresight and internal restructuring, now intensified by global disruption.
Built before the storm
Long before the latest wave of tariffs, Chinese policymakers and business leaders had begun reshaping the country’s growth model. The focus shifted firmly inward: stimulating domestic consumption, accelerating technological self-reliance, and upgrading industrial capacity.
The priorities laid out at the 2025 Two Sessions – including “high-quality growth”, “new productive forces”, and dual circulation – reaffirmed a trajectory already years in motion.
This redirection was not reactive but calculated and, more importantly, inevitable. Even without external pressures, internal dynamics were pushing China toward a new development model focused on quality, resilience, and innovation.
By investing early in supply chain resilience, digital transformation, and domestic demand, China positioned itself to absorb external shocks and adapt faster than many of its global peers.
What the world sees as a sudden disruption, China sees as a catalyst.
From reaction to reinvention
The shift we’re witnessing is not a reaction to new tariffs. It’s a scaled-up version of the pivots Chinese companies began making during Trump’s first term. What started then as contingency planning has matured into coordinated, ecosystem-wide reinvention. It’s the culmination of years of deliberate positioning and strategic patience. What looks like a pivot under pressure is, in fact, reinvention by design.
Back in 2018, when tariffs first spiked under Trump’s administration, many Chinese companies paused, then pivoted. They began sourcing from ASEAN partners, reassessing export dependencies, and investing in automation.
The apparel sector exemplifies this resilience. In 2023, despite global economic headwinds, China’s apparel industry, particularly sportswear, saw a 12.9% year-on-year growth in retail sales, reaching RMB 1.4tn, according to the 2025 IMD China Company Transformation Indicator (CCTI) rankings. Government initiatives like the Outdoor Sports Industry Development Plan (2022–2025) further bolstered this growth, highlighting the synergy between policy support and industry innovation.
Sportswear leaders like Anta and Li-Ning expanded not only through product innovation but also by establishing digital retail ecosystems tailored to domestic preferences. This ability to blend design, tech, and culture offers a competitive model for global brands facing fragmented markets.
Industry clusters in provinces like Guangdong and Jiangsu are investing heavily in smart manufacturing and green tech, while local governments are working with universities to build city-level innovation hubs. The response isn’t improvisation; it’s orchestration.
The end of one global market, and what China sees next
Where there was once a single, liberal global marketplace, there is now a fragmented system of regional blocs, which is governed as much by politics as by price. The world has not deglobalized; it has reorganized.
China anticipated this shift early. As far back as 2017, it began preparing with its dual circulation strategy, designed to strengthen domestic demand and build self-sufficiency in innovation while maintaining selective global linkages, especially across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Today, that strategy is accelerating. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has emerged as the world’s largest trade bloc, while Belt and Road 2.0 (arguably version 1.0 did not meet the desired objectives) is targeting digital infrastructure, green energy, and new development corridors. This isn’t a retreat; it’s rebalancing. China is cultivating parallel channels of capital, talent, and technology that reduce exposure to geopolitical chokepoints.
Still, this strategic diversification doesn’t insulate China from all shocks. Foreign investor sentiment, global brand trust, and cross-border tech cooperation remain exposed to policy and perception risks.
Chinese firms are following suit: diversifying production, localizing supply chains, and aligning operations with regional ecosystems. CATL is anchoring battery production in Thailand and Indonesia. Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, is expanding through partnerships in Malaysia and the UAE. These are not short-term risk responses, but long-horizon positioning in a multipolar trade landscape.
Consider Lenovo. Once a symbol of China’s global expansion through acquisition, it has now pivoted to building a regional supply architecture that balances operations across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Each market operates with autonomy in sourcing, compliance, and product development – a model that reflects the company’s strategic sensitivity to regional fragmentation. Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing, captured this mindset succinctly: “Our ambition is to build Lenovo as a global local company. So, in key markets, we want to build a local footprint, either organically or through acquisition.”
This shift to regional autonomy reflects a broader lesson for global firms: resilience and proximity increasingly matter more than scale alone.
Innovation by design: how China builds competitive advantage
In early March, BYD captured global attention with a breakthrough battery platform capable of delivering 470km of range with five minutes of charging. More than a technical milestone, it signaled a broader shift: China is no longer playing catch-up but is setting the global pace of innovation.
That momentum now extends far beyond electric vehicles. China’s position in consumer tech, fintech, and AI-enabled platforms is strengthening. Tencent and Baidu, for example, earned top rankings in the 2025 CCTI, reflecting deep, sustained investments in AI, including Tencent’s RMB 64bn R&D spend in 2023.
In parallel, startups in hubs like Shenzhen and Hangzhou are scaling AI applications across education, logistics, and urban infrastructure, often outpacing their Western counterparts in speed and deployment.
CATL is expanding into Southeast Asia with sodium-ion batteries that prioritize safety and affordability, fueling the rise of micro-mobility across regional markets. DeepSeek’s large language model, DeepSeek-R1, outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 on mathematics and reasoning benchmarks, despite operating under export restrictions. It is a striking example of China’s efficiency-driven approach to frontier innovation.
At the heart of this innovation is a new model: scale fused with speed, institutional support aligned with entrepreneurial autonomy, and a long-term view of capability-building.
Institutional infrastructure is central. Leading firms are forging deep partnerships with top universities, investing in national research platforms, and building robust mid-career upskilling programs. ByteDance, for instance, has co-developed R&D centers with Tsinghua and Shanghai Jiaotong University to advance content algorithms and behavioral analytics.
Though the CCTI currently covers a limited number of sectors, early findings suggest innovation in China is increasingly systemic. It’s not confined to labs or executive teams, but embedded across procurement, compliance, design, and customer experience.
The hidden edge: how Chinese firms are managed
Western observers often marvel at the speed of Chinese companies. Fewer ask where that speed comes from. The answer lies not just in strategy or scale but in how these firms are managed.
Haier’s transformation into a platform of autonomous microenterprises is a textbook case. Every unit, from fridge design to customer service, runs as a semi-independent business. They compete, collaborate, and share profits across a digital backbone. As Zhang Ruimin, Haier’s founder and longtime CEO, once explained, “We encourage members of our team to become entrepreneurial and start their own micro-enterprises. In this process, we eliminated 10,000 middle-level managers who didn’t create value for the users.” His belief in distributed entrepreneurship reshaped the organization from a traditional appliance manufacturer into one of the world’s most innovative business ecosystems.
Huawei’s internal project teams operate in sprints, not quarters. Managers lead horizontal collaborations and not just vertical chains. Despite facing export bans and component shortages, Huawei restructured its innovation engine around in-house design and ecosystem partnerships.
Ping An has built modular platforms integrating healthcare, finance, and AI. Each is tailored to local regulatory environments yet unified through central governance. This enables rapid iteration without sacrificing strategic alignment.
Even in traditionally rigid sectors like insurance and energy, change is underway. China Life has launched internal incubators to fund and test new service models. State Grid, the country’s dominant utility, deploys regionally distributed teams to lead smart grid pilots across provinces, which brings local insight into a national innovation framework.
This is China’s hidden edge: management innovation. It’s a competitive moat that doesn’t depend on any single product, technology, or founder. It’s difficult to replicate and impossible to sanction.
Strategic lessons from China’s playbook
Of course, China’s path is far from frictionless. Innovation ecosystems vary across provinces, and many firms still navigate regulatory uncertainty and uneven market access. Yet even within these constraints, lessons are emerging.
1. Resilience is engineered. Chinese firms are restructuring supply chains not in response to isolated shocks, but to align with a fragmented, politically charged global economy. Regional ecosystems aren’t just defensive – they are growth strategies. CCTI insights show that top-performing Chinese companies are designing their sourcing and logistics with redundancy, regulatory flexibility, and local responsiveness baked in from the start.
2. Compliance is now a strategic function. In a world of overlapping regulatory regimes, adaptability is a source of speed, trust, and long-term value. Companies that succeed treat compliance not as a cost but as an enabler, embedding it into design, procurement, and customer engagement.
3. Innovation must be locally embedded. Leading firms empower in-market teams, plug into regional talent ecosystems, and adapt platforms to local norms, not just consumer preferences. This localization ensures relevance and resilience, allowing firms to innovate around constraints rather than be slowed by them.
4. The Global South is central. Chinese investment in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is about setting standards and building durable influence. Huawei’s training hubs in Kenya and BYD’s factories in Brazil are examples of this embedded presence. By co-creating local infrastructure and knowledge, Chinese firms are cementing long-term footholds beyond traditional markets.
5. Geopolitics now belongs in the boardroom. Executives must develop tools and foresight to manage political risk, just as CFOs once did with currency volatility. Geopolitical fluency is fast becoming a core leadership competency, as shifting alliances and regulatory climates influence supply decisions, talent mobility, and product design.
6. China can’t be copied, but it can be studied. Its model of alignment between state priorities, corporate architecture, and ecosystem strategy offers a powerful example of how to operate with coherence in an increasingly incoherent world. Global firms must find their own version of this coherence, where purpose, capability, and policy align across geographies.
From multipolar chaos to strategic clarity
The global trade environment may appear chaotic, but for China, the signal is unmistakable: the world is fragmenting, and the strategic response is integration. At home, across ecosystems, and into new regions, Chinese firms are aligning for resilience.
As trade tensions rise and technological decoupling continues, China’s long-term outlook remains focused on capability-building in energy, semiconductors, biotech, and digital infrastructure. This steady orientation offers a roadmap for how to build strategic depth amid global volatility.
What might seem calm on the surface is, in fact, the result of a deliberate redesign that has been years in development and is now accelerating under external pressure. It’s about building institutions and systems that thrive under uncertainty rather than outmaneuvering headlines.
China’s transformation is not reactive but reflects a long-cycle strategic mindset that prioritizes structural advantage over short-term wins. The lesson for global leaders? Resilience isn’t built in the storm. It is designed before the storm arrives and continuously adapted as the weather shifts.
In focus
China’s growing economic partnerships
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)
Launched: Negotiations began in 2012; the agreement was signed in November 2020 and entered into force in January 2022.
Members: 15 Asia-Pacific nations, including the 10 ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and five of their FTA partners (Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea). India was initially involved but withdrew in 2019.
Purpose: To create the world’s largest free trade area by harmonizing and building upon existing ASEAN+1 FTAs, aiming to reduce tariffs, streamline trade, and enhance economic integration among member countries.
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Launched: Announced in 2013 by President Xi Jinping.
Scope: As of early 2024, over 140 countries have joined the BRI, encompassing nearly 75% of the global population and accounting for more than half of the world’s GDP.
Purpose: To enhance regional connectivity and economic integration through infrastructure development, including transportation, energy, and digital projects. The BRI aims to boost trade, stimulate economic growth, and foster cultural exchanges among participating countries.
Global South Alignment
Initiated: China’s engagement with the Global South dates back to the early 1950s, with significant expansion in recent decades.
Scope: China has established 15 free trade agreements with Global South countries, among its 21 FTAs worldwide. It has also increased trade and investment ties with regions like Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Purpose: To reduce reliance on Western economies by strengthening economic partnerships with developing nations, promoting South-South cooperation, and supporting infrastructure and industrial development in partner countries.
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