Feisty China now showing a humble face

Country seen trying to allay notion it’s a global threat

BEIJING — By President Donald Trump’s account, China is an economic behemoth, out to destroy the United States.

In the past few years, he has compared China’s leaders to “grand-chess masters” and accused Beijing of “raping” the U.S. economy and committing the “greatest theft in the history of the world.” In April, as the trade war with China was seemingly just ramping up, Trump tweeted that it was “lost many years ago.”

China has a different message: It’s not that great. Really.

In the past several months, Beijing has urged its officials and party outlets to tamp down the swagger about China’s economic strength. Rather than behemoth, Beijing has begun to pitch itself as a humble helper, an aide to countries in need.

Editorials in the staterun People’s Daily cautioned against describing China’s accomplishments as “the world’s first” or “number one in the world.” This kind of braggadocio, writers argued, “could easily make people misunderstand or even misjudge” the country. This month, a professor who dared suggest that China’s economy had already surpassed the United States’ faced a social media backlash of students and alumni suggesting he should be fired.

State media outlets have been told to minimize references to Made in China 2025, a major initiative to turn China into a global leader in 10 key industries, including artificial intelligence, commercial airline development and pharmaceuticals.

“The trade war has made China more humble,” Wang Yiwei, a professor of international affairs at Renmin University in Beijing and deputy director of the institution’s “Xi Jinping Thought” center, told Bloomberg. “We should keep a low profile.”

At a recent Washington reception, China’s U.S. Ambassador Cui Tiankai said Beijing’s goal is to develop itself, not to compete with other nations. “China has no intention to challenge the international standing and interests of any other country or the existing international order and system,” he said.

It’s an odd turn for China under leader Xi, who has sought to shed his country’s modest foreign policy for a more aggressive quest for dominance. But experts say it’s an attempt to mollify the Trump administration and other foreign leaders.

“There is an effort to downplay any potential Chinese threat to the U.S.,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an email.

Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy accused China of using “economic inducements and penalties, influence operations and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda.” At the time of its release, a senior administration official called