\n And there\u2019s a growing audience willing to listen.\n <\/p>\n
\n Hours after Trump\u2019s broadside, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng took the stage at the annual Alpine meet to insist that Beijing \u201chas consistently acted on the vision of a community with a shared future and remained steadfast in supporting multilateralism and free trade.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re upholding consensus and solidarity, and cooperation over division and confrontation, and providing China\u2019s solutions to the common problems of the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
![\"China's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/gettyimages-2256650029.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n The comments, made as leaders braced for Trump\u2019s arrival at the gathering, underscore China\u2019s strategy to showcase itself as a calm, rational and dependable counterweight to the shock and awe of the Trump administration\u2019s foreign policy.\n <\/p>\n
\n Chinese leader Xi Jinping has for years called for a reshaping of a world order<\/a> that he sees as unfairly dominated by the US and its allies \u2013 and is increasingly offering his own vision as an alternative, even as Beijing\u2019s own neighbors have raised warnings of the country\u2019s regional aggression.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Now, the logic echoing though Beijing policy circles is simple: China doesn\u2019t need to go out of its way to chase gains in the global balance of power, it simply needs to stay its course while the US loses allies and credibility all on its own.\n <\/p>\n \n And that strategy appears to already be reaping dividends, as Trump\u2019s rankling of US allies \u2013 as he refuses to rule out taking control of a Danish territory by force \u2013 drives forward the kind of threat to the US alliance system, and NATO in particular<\/a>, that Beijing could have only dreamed of orchestrating.\n <\/p>\n \n To see that play out, look no further than the Davos address of Canadian leader Mark Carney<\/a>, who \u2013 in a stunningly frank admission from one of the US\u2019 closest allies \u2013 cast \u201cAmerican hegemony\u201d as part of a fictional \u201cinternational rules-based order.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false \u2013 that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,\u201d Carney said in an apparent allusion, at least in part, to the US.\n <\/p>\n \n Carney\u2019s message wasn\u2019t framed as an embrace of China \u2013 the Canadian leader started out by alluding to a critique of the Soviet Union\u2019s authoritarianism. But the rhetoric \u2013 which follows a year of Trump musing publicly about turning Canada into the 51st US state \u2013 has enough overlap with that of Beijing\u2019s own playbook to mark a point on China\u2019s board.\n <\/p>\n \n It also followed a more tangible win. Carney, during a fence-mending trip to Beijing<\/a> last week, ushered in a new era of cooperation with China, launching a \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d and relaxing Canada\u2019s stringent tariffs on Chinese EVs it had implemented in lockstep with the US. (He also said that partnership would set the country up well for the \u201cnew world order\u201d \u2013 a line that again appeared in step with China\u2019s view that global change is nigh).\n <\/p>\n \n Other close US partners have also signalled an interest in moving closer to or mending ties with China as they hedge against the US. Britain\u2019s Keir Starmer has pushed for more engagement with Beijing and on Tuesday his government approved the controversial construction of a new Chinese \u201cmega\u201d embassy<\/a> close to London\u2019s financial district.\n <\/p>\n \n Some of that diplomatic manoeuvring may be reluctant \u2013 driven by a realpolitik in which the US threat to the NATO alliance and erection of barriers around the American market are breaking old bonds and forging new ones. And it comes despite Western concerns about Beijing\u2019s own ambitions, including when it comes to the self-governing island of Taiwan.\n <\/p>\n \n And in Beijing, that\u2019s seen as exactly the kind of situation where China can gain, not only in terms of driving a wedge between the US and Europe, but pressing its own territorial claims and keeping its positioning in the global economy.\n <\/p>\n![\"Canada's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026-01-16t142317z-2053981697-rc282jaaw1xs-rtrmadp-3-china-canada.JPG\")
<\/p>\n