China has spent six years building strategic leverage through commodity stockpiles and diplomatic outreach, undermining the negotiating position Trump expects to bring to Beijing on May 14.

Beijing amassed a 1.4-billion-barrel strategic crude reserve (roughly 115 days of seaborne imports) after Washington placed Huawei on its Entity List in 2019, and is now reselling West African crude and a record 1.31 million tons of LNG to Asian neighbors including South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and India.

China has cut tariffs on imports from all 53 African countries to zero (as of May 1), opened visa-free entry for Europeans, is fast-tracking minority Chinese investment in seven strategic sectors in India, and released DeepSeek AI as open-source—while simultaneously dismissing U.S. secondary sanctions threats and controlling the global supply of rare earth elements (neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, and yttrium oxides).

China's net global perception stands at +7% according to the Alliance of Democracies' Democracy Perception Index released on May 8, while the international perception of the U.S. has fallen to -16% from +22% two years ago.