Xi Jinping's Maoist tactics

I love China and I would like to come more often. It was January 9, 2019 when the richest man in the world, shaking hands with the number two of the Communist Party, made his declaration of love for the People's Republic of China. During this meeting in Beijing, it was Li Keqiang himself who offered Elon Musk permanent residence in China. Two days earlier, the entrepreneur with a fortune of 400 billion dollars had inaugurated the first Tesla factory outside the United States in Shanghai, giving rise to a report. win-winaccording to the formula of the Chinese communists: boom in profits for the Stars and Stripes company thanks to the factory that the CCP wanted as a driver of high-tech investments and a symbol of the country's green shift.

Five years have passed, the billions of Elon Musk that Donald Trump put at the head of the Department for Government Effectiveness depend more and more on China, which the president-elect, in his first National Security Strategy (December 2017), accuses of defying power. American influence and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. Half of Tesla's global production takes place in Gigafactory 3, located in the Yangtze River Delta megacity. Last year, global Tesla electric car sales (1,789,226) fell 1.1% from 2023, while China's (657,175, 37% of the total) rose 8.8%. %. Tesla was able to benefit from the same subsidies granted to local manufacturers, and its activities in China are not limited to electric cars.

In the first quarter of this year, the multinational, headquartered in Austin, Texas, will begin production of its Megapacks in Shanghai, systems that provide massive storage of clean energy. Also in this case, Musk adopts the line In China for China hfocused primarily on the local market, at the forefront of the use of renewable energy, also to power electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Megapack's main supply chain partners are CATL and FinDreams (BYD), the richest and most innovative Chinese companies that dominate the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery sector.

Conflict of interest

What is likely to explode on January 20, when the forty-seventh American president takes office, is an unprecedented conflict of interest, which will hang over the White House as long as Musk remains among Trump's most trusted advisors . An unprecedented contrast between private enterprise and the representation of a nation, which while the value of Tesla's shares continues to increase after the Republican tycoon's victory, The Economist questioned, on the cover of its latest issue: Will Elon Musk dominate President Trump's economic policy?.

The conflict between Musk's role and the public interest emerged in the final days of the Biden administration. First with the approval of the measure to avoid the federal shutdown, which contained additional limits on US investments in China in the semiconductor, quantum computing and artificial intelligence sectors, removed following to the public opposition of Elon Musk. Then, with the ongoing conflict over visas granted by States to foreign engineers and researchers in high technology, which opposes Musk, opposed to the repression of these permits, essential to attract talent to Silicon Valley, the anti-electorate immigration that brought him back to the White House Trump, who ultimately aligned himself with the entrepreneur he himself defined as a genius.

It was Li Qiang, the official that the 20th CCP Congress (October 16-22, 2022) promoted to number two and prime minister, who convinced Musk to build Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai – while he was party secretary of the city -, a rung higher than the lower one. of President Xi Jinping. In recent years, Musk has had access to Zhongnanhai, the former imperial garden where the party's top leaders live under heavy protection, and was able to meet face to face with Xi, Industry Minister Jin Zhuanglong and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

High-tech magnet

All of this has led former Trump strategist Steve Bannon to denounce the CCP as Musk's paymaster, and others to speculate that Xi and his cohorts will be able to use Musk as leverage to promote the agenda. Chinese within the American administration. A hyperbole that does not take into account Beijing's real strategy, Musk's objectives and the interests of the United States of America.

To understand the CCP's bet on the tycoon of South African origin, it is enough to reread the wishes addressed to him in Beijing by former Prime Minister Li, who died in 2023: We hope that you will gain a solid foothold and expand the market . and we hope that Tesla can participate in China's opening-up and promote stable relations between China and the United States. Beijing attributes above all economic value to the first foreign company to which it has granted the privilege of owning a factory without entering into a joint venture with a local partner.

The Model 3 and Model Y produced by Gigafactory 3, emblem of an America that many Chinese admire, have contributed decisively to the popularity of electric vehicles in what has become their largest global market. And as in the future, Megapacks have proven effective in affirming the CCP's industrial and environmental policies. The party uses Musk for its socio-economic development goals. And China doesn't even think about Starlink. To defend its sovereignty, Beijing created the Jilin-1 satellite communications system, which a few days ago recorded a record data transmission speed of 110 gigabits per second.

The issues

As for Musk, like all major industrialists, he will continue above all to try to increase the turnover of his companies. It is for this reason that, in the subtitle of its front page, The Economist predicts that he will face opposition from America First supporters and traditional conservatives..

As for the Trump administration, the scenario is certainly different now that Musk has become his right-hand man, but we must not forget that Shanghai's Gigafactory 3 started the assembly line just as Donald was challenging Beijing with rights tariffs on imports from China, which he now threatens to increase to 60 percent.

In other words, the presence of Musk in his administration (which, according to some, could last a short time) will not prevent Trump from carrying out the anti-China policy entrusted to ministers like Marco Rubio, who will lead the State Department and which in 2023 accused Musk of helping the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide and forced labor in the region, for opening a Tesla dealership in Xinjiang.

Finally, it is very unlikely that Beijing will respond to Trump's super tariffs with retaliation against Mr. Tesla, as some commentators have also speculated. Indeed, in Beijing, they will be able to distinguish between Trump's policies and those of Elon Musk, as long as the latter continues to serve China's interests. With his exaggerated compliments (China is great, with its intelligent and hardworking people, while the Americans are complacent and privileged), as well as his investments that favor the continuation of the second largest economy on the planet, Musk has gone as far as 'now revealed to be the perfect interpreter of the role that Mao Zedong had reserved for foreigners.

The duration of the romance with the leaders of Beijing and that with Donald is a question which, more than relations between the United States and China, is linked to Musk's ability to keep his feet in both shoes, in continuing to be useful to China, without irritating the country. the most powerful apparatus in Washington.

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