Chinese Tariff Riots

Many have criticized Trump’s policy of rebalancing trade arrangements with China through tariffs but they’re working.
 
Many have claimed that the mighty Chinese economy is impervious to US actions and can overwhelm the US in a war.  We now see that isn’t quite the case.
 
Daily Caller website reports riots by disgruntled workers throughout China.
 

Workers throughout China are flooding the streets in revolt as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slam the fragile Chinese export economy.
 
The wave of unrest follows a brutal plunge in China’s export orders, now at their lowest since the COVID lockdowns. Goldman Sachs estimates up to 16 million Chinese jobs could vanish as Trump’s tariffs bite deeper into the regime’s weak underbelly.[1]

The tariffs are accomplishing the same thing that a war would do.  China would be isolated and its export-centric economy would collapse as the world halted all manufacturing orders.  On top of that would be blockades restricting imports of vital raw materials, further impacting manufacturing.
 
ComNavOps has often said that China has far more to lose, economically, in a war than the US and the tariff ‘war’ is providing ample proof of that.
 
This is not to trivialize the Chinese economy.  It’s powerful, to be sure, but it’s not the all-powerful, unassailable behemoth that so many fear.  Just as the US has some glaring strategic weaknesses, so too does China and their export-dependent economy is one of them.  Of course, in a war, China could always force workers to produce as unpaid slave labor but that would create additional problems.
 
This, as much as any other factor, may be what’s staying China’s bid for Taiwan for the time being.
 
This also demonstrates the potential of true all-domain warfare which, as an example, we are not applying to the Houthi conflict.
 
 

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[1]Daily Caller website, “China Erupts: Furious Workers Riot As Factories Collapse Under Trump’s Tariffs”, Floyd Buford, 1-May-2025,
https://dailycaller.com/2025/05/01/china-erupts-riot-factories-trump-tariffs/