Infighting Within the Chinese Regime: Factions Split Over US-China Trade War

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (1st R), U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (2nd R), and other U.S. officials meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (1st L), Central Bank Governor Yi Gang (2nd L), and other Chinese officials in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2019. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

After Chinese state media published multiple commentaries that denounce the United States as bullying China in their trade talks and boast of China’s determination to “fight to the end,” there has emerged another type of propaganda war. Instead of targeting the United States as the enemy, the most recent round of media war is about infighting within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between two factions—“doves” and “hawks.”

The doves blame the hawks for advocating “extreme nationalism,” and the hawks attack the doves as being “capitulators.”

Doves Against ‘Closed-Door Policy’

In a June 3 editorial, China’s financial magazine Caijing called on Chinese people to stay alert about extreme nationalism, especially voices that advocate closing the door to foreign countries, setting up a separate set of technical standards as well as economic and trade ecosystems.