How eating bitterness has pushed Chinas enraged workers to the brink

As the world’s two largest economies square off in the most consequential trade war in nearly a century, metaphors are flying.“Eat Bitterness,” China’s Xi Jinping often admonishes his people as he urges them to remain strong despite the costs of his economic programs.“Eat crow” is what many critics hope President Donald Trump will do — as they argue he should stand down on his tariff plans and halt the damage his trade war is doing to the US economy.China is more vulnerable than Xi believes: Widespread protests against the Trump tariffs’ economic shock spread across the nation this week.Workers’ fury at layoffs, plant closures and employers’ failure to pay salaries could dangerously accelerate social unrest.But Trump, too, faces risks in this high-stakes game.Xi has accelerated Beijing’s past efforts to build self-sufficiency and in effect to decouple from US economic supremacy.His decade-long “Made in China 2025” program pushed state resources into the goal of dominating global production in the most important industries of the modern economy.Meanwhile, Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to link other nations to the Middle Kingdom economically and politically, its BRICS grouping of mostly authoritarian states and its Shanghai Cooperation Organization for trade and finance all aimed to construct pillars of an economic bloc separate from the US-led global system.Xi’s ongoing attempt to set up a payment and finance system for global trade and to undermine dollar dominance crowns his program.Yet the economic structure of Xi’s scheme depends on exports to maintain the steady growth of the Chinese economy — mainly exports to the United States.In sharp contrast with the US and most developed economies, household consumption in China only accounts for about 40% of GDP, while fixed capital investment in infrastructure and factories hovers around one-third.Last year exports represented 18% of China’s GDP.China continues to invest in...