Xi Jinping wants you to know that he will not be cowed.

习近平要让世界知道，恐吓对他来说不管用。

Confronted with the latest threat from President Trump of an additional 50 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing reverses its retaliatory levies on U.S. imports, China’s top leader has remained defiant. His Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday accused the United States of “blackmail” and declared that Beijing would “fight to the end.”

面对美国总统特朗普发出的最新威胁，中国最高领导人毫不动摇。特朗普要求中国取消对美国商品的报复性关税，否则将对中国商品追加50%的关税。中国商务部周二谴责美国“讹诈”，称中国将“奉陪到底”。

But behind the bravado is a more complicated set of realities for Mr. Xi that makes it politically and economically untenable to offer concessions to the country’s single largest trading partner and chief rival for global influence. With Mr. Trump also refusing to back down, a devastating trade war between the two largest economies may be inevitable — a showdown with painful consequences that will be felt across the world.

但这种逞强背后是一组更为复杂的现实，使得习近平在政治和经济上都难以向中国最大的单一贸易伙伴和全球影响力的主要竞争对手做出让步。特朗普也拒绝退让，世界最大两个经济体之间的一场毁灭性贸易战可能无法避免，这场决战带来的惨痛后果将在世界范围内显现。

The dilemma for Mr. Xi is that looking weak is not an option, but hitting back risks further escalation. The Chinese leader has cast himself as a national savior who is rejuvenating his country’s greatness. As a result, Beijing has less flexibility to back down from a fight with Washington, as other U.S. trading partners like Vietnam have tried, because it could undercut Mr. Xi’s legitimacy, analysts say.

习近平面临两难选择，他不能向美国示弱，但反击有可能导致贸易战进一步升级。这名中国领导人已把自己塑造成民族救星，正在实现中华民族的伟大复兴。分析人士表示，结果是，中国在与美国的斗争中退让的灵活性较小，不像越南等其他美国贸易伙伴已在尝试的那样，因为退缩可能会削弱习近平的合法性。

“Beijing’s response to date has emphasized three things: resolve, resilience, and retaliation,” said Julian Gewirtz, a former senior China policy official at the White House and State Department under President Biden who is now writing a book on U.S.-China relations.

“中国政府目前的回应强调了三点：决心、韧性、报复，”曾在拜登当总统期间担任白宫和国务院中国政策高级官员的朱利安·格维茨说，他目前正在写一本有关中美关系的书。

“Xi has built up an image of himself as a defiant strongman helming a powerful country, and China’s official messaging is conveying that they are determined to stand up to U.S. pressure even at high costs,” he said.

“习近平给自己树立的形象是领导一个强大国家的强人，中国官方传递的信息是，他们有决心顶住美国的压力，哪怕付出高昂的代价，”他说。

That helps explain why China scuttled a deal to sell a portion of TikTok to American investors last week in response to Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and why it is resisting a sale of the ports owned by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison along the Panama Canal.

这有助于解释为什么中国上周阻挠了将TikTok的部分股权出售给美国投资者的交易，以及它为什么要阻止香港长江和记实业公司出售在巴拿马运河两端拥有的港口，这些都是对特朗普加征全面关税的回应。

It also plays into why Beijing on Tuesday threatened more countermeasures if Mr. Trump went through with imposing an additional 50 percent in tariffs on Chinese goods. China has said it is willing to hold talks, but not under duress.

这也是中国政府周二表示将采取更多反制措施的原因，如果特朗普坚持对中国商品追征50%关税的话。虽然中国说愿意谈判，但谈判不能在受强迫的情况下进行。

China’s leaders are also likely calculating that a clash with the Trump administration is inevitable, analysts say. Mr. Trump’s tariffs last week — which also targeted countries like Vietnam and Thailand, where Chinese companies have set up factories to skirt earlier U.S. tariffs — would be seen in Beijing as evidence that Washington is determined to block China’s rise.

分析人士表示，中国领导人目前的考量可能是与特朗普政府发生冲突不可避免。特朗普上周宣布的关税也针对越南和泰国等国家，中国公司为规避美国以前对中国商品征收的关税，在那些国家设立了工厂。中国政府将特朗普的全面关税视为美国决心阻止中国崛起的证据。

“From this vantage, there is little to be gained from capitulating to Trump’s latest demand, because it would not resolve the underlying challenge from the United States,” said Ryan Hass, the director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. “At best, they believe, it would merely postpone America’s determination to destroy China’s economy.”

“从这个角度来看，向特朗普的最新要求屈服几乎没有任何好处，因为这解决不了来自美国的根本挑战，”布鲁金斯学会约翰·桑顿中国中心主任何瑞恩(Ryan Hass)说。“他们认为，那充其量只会延缓美国摧毁中国经济的决心。”

The rising tensions make a meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump increasingly unlikely.

紧张局势加剧让习近平与特朗普会晤的可能性变得越来越小。

Mr. Trump, who regards unpredictability as his signature weapon, has said he is open to engaging with Mr. Xi, even suggesting the Chinese leader would visit. But Chinese officials are reluctant to schedule a meeting until the two sides have negotiated details in advance.

特朗普将不可预测性视为自己的标志性武器，他表示愿意与习近平接触，甚至暗示中国领导人将访问美国。但中国官员们不愿在提前商定好细节之前安排双方首脑会晤。

周一，加利福尼亚州圣佩德罗的洛杉矶港。去年，美国进口了价值4400亿美元的中国商品。

Even if Mr. Xi were to cave and submit to Mr. Trump’s demands to cancel China’s retaliatory tariffs, it is unclear what, if any, trade deal would make a meaningful dent in the yawning trade imbalance between the two countries. The United States imported $440 billion worth of Chinese goods last year, more than three times the value of the $144 billion of U.S. goods that China imported.

就算习近平向特朗普的要求屈服，取消中国的报复性关税，也不清楚双方能否达成任何会明显减少两国巨大贸易失衡的贸易协议。去年，美国从中国进口了价值4400亿美元的商品，是中国从美国进口的1440亿美元商品的三倍以上。

Beijing sees Mr. Trump as singularly focused on undermining China’s dominance in exports in order to bring manufacturing back to the United States, said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

华盛顿史汀生中心中国项目主任孙韵表示，中国政府认为，为了将制造业带回美国，特朗普一心想削弱中国在商品出口方面的主导地位。

“Decoupling might be the endgame,” Ms. Sun said, describing how China is likely interpreting Mr. Trump’s motives.

“脱钩可能是竞争的最后阶段，”孙韵在描述中国可能正在如何解读特朗普的动机时说。

Mr. Xi has long warned that China’s rise would likely not go unchallenged by the West, and invested heavily in efforts to build up China’s self-reliance.

习近平早就警告称，中国的崛起不可能不受到来自西方的挑战，并已为增强中国的自力更生能力投入了巨额资金。

This week, as stock markets around the world tumbled, Beijing mobilized state-owned banks and investment companies, known informally in China as the “national team,” to shore up their holdings of Chinese shares in an effort to stem the decline. Chinese stocks rose slightly on Tuesday after big declines a day earlier.

本周，随着全球股市暴跌，中国政府动员国有银行和投资公司（在中国被非正式地称为“国家队”）增持中国公司的股票，以阻止股市下跌。中国股市在周一大幅下跌后，周二小幅上涨。

And the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, published a commentary on Sunday urging Chinese citizens to have confidence in China’s ability to weather the tariffs. The piece argued that China has expanded its trade markets outside the United States and that the Chinese economy is growing more self-sufficient with the help of breakthroughs in technology like artificial intelligence.

中共喉舌《人民日报》周日发表评论员文章，呼吁民众相信中国有能力应对关税。文章称，中国已经将外贸市场拓展到了美国以外的地方，中国经济正在人工智能等技术领域取得突破的帮助下变得更加自给自足。

Economists say those points are true, but that a full-blown trade war on the scale threatened by Mr. Trump will still inflict considerable pain on China. If the Trump administration imposes an additional 50 percent tariff, it could bring the U.S. levy on Chinese goods to 104 percent. For some products, though, the rate is likely to be much higher because of tariffs that date back to Mr. Trump’s first term.

经济学家表示，虽然这些是真的，但特朗普所威胁的那种规模的全面贸易战仍将给中国带来相当大的痛苦。如果特朗普政府追加50%关税的话，美国对中国商品征收的关税可能将达到104%。但对于某些商品的关税可能会更高，因为特朗普上次担任总统期间已经对它们加征了关税。

Chinese exporters might not be able to simply divert their goods to other countries because the flood of Chinese exports has already been met with concern in major markets like the European Union.

中国的出口商们可能无法简单地把商品卖到其他国家去，因为中国出口商品的大量涌入已在欧盟等主要市场引发了担忧。

At the same time, in this game of tariff brinkmanship, analysts in China think Mr. Trump will be more likely to succumb to domestic pressure to change tack because of the soaring costs of goods and plummeting stock values in the United States.

与此同时，在关税战的边缘政策游戏中，中国分析人士认为，由于美国物价上涨、股价暴跌，特朗普更有可能因屈服于国内压力而改变做法。

“If it’s a question of who can endure more pain, China will not lose,” said Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.

“如果问题是谁能承受更多痛苦的话，中国一定不会输，”北京人民大学重阳金融研究院院长王文说。

The United States needed China, Mr. Wen said, more than China needed the United States because Chinese factories make parts and components that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

王文说，美国需要中国甚于中国需要美国，因为中国工厂生产的零部件，世界其他任何地方都不生产。

“Other countries will buy goods from China and then sell them to the United States,” he said.

“其他国家将从中国购买商品，然后卖给美国，”他说。

Part of China’s strategy has also been to use the chaotic consequences of Mr. Trump’s tariffs to try to draw the rest of the world away from Washington’s orbit.

中国的部分战略也包括利用特朗普关税带来的混乱后果，试图将世界其他国家拉离华盛顿的轨道。

Mr. Xi is reportedly planning to visit Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam next week. Beijing has also tried to project a united front with Japan and South Korea against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, though officials in Tokyo and Seoul, which both rely on America for security, have distanced themselves from the Chinese position.

据报道，习近平打算下周访问包括越南在内的东南亚国家。中国政府还试图与日本和韩国结成统一阵线，共同反对特朗普的关税政策，但日韩依赖美国提供的安全保障，东京和首尔的官员们不想向中国的立场靠拢。

On the same day that Mr. Trump unveiled his tariffs, China’s Foreign Ministry posted a video on social media casting the United States as a source of harm and instability, with references to the U.S. president’s push to deport migrants and to tariffs imposed on cars newly delivered at a port. “Do you want to live in a world like this?” a narrator asks.

特朗普宣布加征关税的同一天，中国外交部在社交媒体上发布了一段视频，称美国是制造伤害和不稳定的根源，其中提到美国总统正在大力驱逐移民，对新运抵港口的汽车征收关税。“你想生活在这样的世界吗？”一个画外音问道。

That was followed by scenes of Chinese peacekeeping troops and Chinese rescue teams pulling victims out of the rubble after Myanmar’s recent earthquake, laid over a soundtrack featuring John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

视屏中接下来出现了中国维和部队和中国救援队在缅甸最近发生地震后从废墟中救出受灾者的场景，背景音乐是约翰·列侬的《想象》(Imagine)。

“There’s no question Beijing is milking this moment,” said Danny Russel, a diplomacy and security analyst at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington. The Foreign Ministry’s video is “pure propaganda jujitsu” aimed at “painting Trump’s tariffs as reckless U.S. chaos while China offers order and partnership.”

“毫无疑问，北京正在利用这个机会，”华盛顿亚洲协会政策研究所的外交和安全分析师丹尼·拉塞尔说。中国外交部的视频是“纯粹的宣传柔术”，旨在“将特朗普的关税描绘成美国不计后果制造混乱，而中国提供给世界的是秩序和伙伴关系”。

“But the view from Beijing is conflicted,” Mr. Russel said. “Beijing’s instinct is to avoid interrupting its enemy when he’s making a mistake, but they’re also deeply worried those mistakes could crash the global economy, and China with it.”

“但中国政府的看法是矛盾的，”拉塞尔说。“中国政府的本能是在敌人犯错时避免打断对方，但他们也非常担心这些错误可能会让全球经济崩溃，从而拉垮中国。”