Beijing’s charm offensive with the world’s rich men may backfire. The PRC may misunderstand capitalist countries’ dynamics.
The March 28 meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and 42 foreign billionaires showcased Beijing’s commitment to overseas investors and highlighted its centrality to its domestic audience. Another subtler goal might have been to win over global tycoons to advance China’s agenda. In return, they would be handsomely rewarded. This strategy has been used with Hong Kong since 1990, on the eve of the 1997 handover, and made inroads in Taiwan, awaiting reunification with the mainland. Now, Beijing seems keen on trying it on a broader scale.
However, it might not work and could backfire.
Charming billionaires worked in Hong Kong because, ultimately, Beijing was politically in control, and therefore, local billionaires could help China hold society together. It works ok in Taiwan because there is a grey area. Although Beijing is not dominant, Taipei’s clout is somehow in jeopardy as the island is independent de facto but not de jure. However, if the ruling party in Beijing is not entirely in control, it may not work.
The misperception may be grounded in the belief in a Leninist class division—in capitalist countries, the capitalists call the shots, elections, and other powers are just a charade.
It may be false.
Caste not Class
Capitalists are essential but not the only ones pulling all the strings in capitalist countries.
In his book “Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A History of the World in Three Castes” (2013), David Priestland describes it differently and perhaps more accurately. Class struggle between rich and poor is not a sufficient explanation of social and political dynamics in capitalist countries or any country. Since antiquity, societies saw themselves segmented along different lines.
There are various interest clusters: merchants, warriors, priests, scholars, ordinary people grouped according to their jobs or ethnic origin—Mexican or Irish in the United States, metalworkers, or truck drivers. Each has its ambitions, culture, and loyalty. Plus, capitalists are divided among themselves and constantly pursue competing agendas. All is held together by a complex set of written and unwritten rules.
Capitalists are just one element of this complex chemistry, essential but perhaps not even the most important one. Like in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), technocrats hold the state together, have a massive sway, and their survival is bound to the state they serve. Unlike billionaires scouring the globe for deals, they have no legitimate interest in advancing China’s agenda but the betrayal of their country.
China has no real internationalist agenda but expanding its national interests and a vague win-win strategy. Billionaires become extremely important if they work with the people in control: the technocrats (bureaucrats, courts, soldiers and police, media, universities…) and the political leaders. If they act on their own, they must gain consensus, provide arguments, and supply advantages to the ordinary people, warriors, and scholars who comprise the general consensus.
In capitalist countries, some capitalists have met massive opposition that ultimately caused their downfall because they mishandled social relations, not their business. If an American businessman is perceived as friendly to China when the public is hostile to the PRC, this could incense the public and create further hostility toward China.
Moreover, “pro-PRC billionaires” have no palatable long-term plan for the US. What is the US to do, surrender to China, and then what? Do people trust China will treat the US with kid gloves?
The 2018 Hong Kong protests’ crackdown proved that Beijing forfeits international agreements if it feels its security is at stake. The PRC had pledged not to touch the Hong Kong status quo for 50 years after its handover in 1997. The promise was thrashed 30 years ahead of time.
PRC intentions
Moreover, some billionaires may doubt the PRC’s long-term intentions. If China were to win its race with the US, would its leaders still respect billionaires and their wealth, or would they line them up, question their loyalty, and seize their assets as they see fit? It happens in China with the anti-corruption campaign. Lastly, the meeting was a show of domestic confidence, but some Chinese may ask: “Why the show? Because things at home are uncertain and wobbly.” It thus may backfire at home, too.
The meeting rode on huge market uncertainty driven by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the success of the Chinese AI Deepseek. Tariffs are one instrument, and rather old and blunt, to address the Chinese trade surplus. Tariffs can be bypassed in several ways: devaluation of your currency, incentives, tax cuts, triangulation of the origin of manufacturing – all instruments China perfected during the first Trump administration. The US may need a more comprehensive approach.
China needs to face the music. It can win the international audience and, thus, its domestic audience if it offers a viable proposal for an international order. Roughly, two options exist: join the capitalist world with its rules or try to subvert it.
Communism or radical Islam tries to subvert it. Small countries can try to navigate in between, like some Muslim countries or Russia, which has state capitalism internally with full currency convertibility while being aggressive externally.
China is large, aggressive (disputing its boundaries), and resistant to the capitalist order. It impacts the world massively and in many ways. Thus, it can buy short-term consensus but might not hold or expand its footprint.
