For Xi Jinping, Year of the Snake is destined to be turbulent
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Singapore: Welcome to the Year of the Snake.
This week we saw the peak of the Lunar New Year travel rush across China, the world’s largest annual mass movement of people, as millions criss-crossed the country to be with family and friends.
As per tradition, many families would have spent New Year’s Eve on Tuesday making dumplings together before bidding farewell to the Year of the Dragon and ushering in its beguiling, fork-tongued successor.
A light installation celebrating the Year of the Snake in Beijing.Credit: Sanghee Liu
The themes of good luck, auspiciousness and prosperity are deeply interwoven in Chinese traditions, as is zodiac mythology. The Chinese zodiac runs on a 12-year cycle, each year represented by a different animal, and plays a significant role in cultural practices, shaping superstitions around marriage compatibility, business fortunes and health.
Those born in the Year of the Snake are said to be wise and charming, but also mysterious and cunning.
For President Xi Jinping, a “Snake” man born in 1953, his zodiac year seems destined to be filled with uncertainty, turbulence and chaotic relationships.
Travellers at the Hongqiao railway station ahead of Lunar New Year holidays in Shanghai, China.Credit: Bloomberg
That’s not a prediction sourced from astrology, by the way, but an obvious takeaway from Donald Trump’s return to the White House last week.
Take, for example, the ever-fluid threat of tariffs. No matter the problem, when it comes to dealing with US-China disputes the answer, according to Trump, is tariffs. Opposing the sale of TikTok? Tariffs. No curbs on fentanyl production? Tariffs.
Even some kind of deal involving Taiwan? Don’t rule it out.
“We have one very big power over China, and that is tariffs,” Trump said last week. “And they don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use it. But it’s a tremendous power over China.”
We are on the cusp of Trump’s threatened February 1 tariff deadline, with little certainty about whether he will follow through on it. The latest version of the threat is an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods as punishment for China’s role in the fentanyl trade as the major manufacturer of precursor chemicals for the drug.
US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and their wives arrive for a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during Trump’s first term. Back then he was already considering tariffs.Credit: AP
As of Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was briefing that Trump is still “very much still considering” raising tariffs on China on February 1.
This latest threat came after Beijing appeared to escape the wrath of Trump 2.0 on day one. A firehose of executive orders and policy proposals flew out of the Oval Office on the presidency’s first day, but there was no sign of the mooted 60 per cent tariffs on all Chinese imports Trump had floated during the campaign.
Instead, it was the US’s closest neighbours in the firing line, with threats of 25 per cent duties on imports from Canada and Mexico.
Then there is the hairpin narrative arc Trump has travelled on TikTok.
In his first term, he kicked off efforts to ban the Chinese-owned app, citing data harvesting and national security concerns in 2020. On his return to office, he recast himself as the app’s saviour.
By the end of his first day, Trump had signed a stay-of-execution order that delayed the ban by 75 days amid a scramble to find a US buyer, and by the end of the week he said he was considering getting a TikTok account on his own phone.
It’s too early to say where DeepSeek might fit into all this. The Chinese AI chatbot – which seemingly came out of nowhere this week, blindsided its competitors, blew up US tech stocks on Wall Street, and quickly shot to No.1 in app stores – has already triggered privacy and security concerns in the US, Britain and Australia.
Beijing knows a pendulum that swings in one direction can always swing back. Such are the perils, but also the potential benefits, of negotiating directly with Trump.
The message coming out of China is that Beijing wants to cut a deal with Trump – but exactly what that would entail and whether it could veer beyond trade and into foreign policy areas such as Taiwan or Ukraine remains unclear.
All eyes, then, are on whether Trump visits Beijing during his first 100 days in office, as he has indicated he would like to.
During his first term, Trump developed a reputation for having “last briefer” syndrome – the idea that the last person to advise him on a policy could have significant influence on his views and even change his mind.
In that case, is it better to be a snake or a charmer?
It’s something Xi is surely weighing up as he considers whether to extend an early invitation.
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