China’s Xi calls for ‘new Long March’ as US tensions rise

Bloomberg

China’s President Xi Jinping called on citizens to join a “new Long March”, a phrase he’s used before to characterise achieving progress despite hardship, as the US weighs stronger
restrictions on Chinese technology companies amid a deepening trade war.
Xi made the remarks while leaving the Long March memorial garden in Jiangxi Province, according to a video clip released by state television. The site marks the starting point of a lengthy migration from 1934 by the Communist Party’s military after setbacks that forced it to join with troops in northwest China.
“We came to the starting point of the Long March to experience the Red Army’s departure at that time,” Xi said to a cheering crowd as he departed. “It’s a new Long March now, and we must start all over again.”
While the comments have historical significance, Xi last March also called the push to turn party proposals into reality a “new Long March” and state-run Xinhua News Agency defined the phrase as the realisation of the Chinese dream in a story. Yet, the timing of the clip — released one day after Xi actually made the remarks — and the decision to air only one line, could be read as rallying the nation for what is set to be prolonged conflict with the US.
Xi’s trip to Jiangxi came after talks between Beijing and Washington stalled, with US President Donald Trump accusing China of backing out of a deal that was taking shape and saying that China reneged on an agreement to legislate various agreed reforms. Xi visited a rare earths facility in Jiangxi, fuelling speculation that the strategic materials could be weaponised in China’s tit-for-tat with the US on trade.
Trump is considering blacklisting up to five Chinese surveillance companies including Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co and Zheijiang Dahua Technology Co, according to people familiar with the matter. The restrictions would be similar to those imposed on Huawei Technologies Co, and would sharply curtail the companies’ access to US market and American suppliers.
The US policy of “maximum pressure” on Huawei has proved again that China can’t buy its way into modernisation, according to a commentary published in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party. The paper cautioned that “China’s economic security cannot be ensured unless it achieves technology independence.”