China This Week: Strategic Moves and Messaging
July 18-24, 2025
Each week, Xinanigans tracks Beijing’s most strategically significant moves across military, economic, technological, and narrative domains, revealing how the Chinese Communist Party is shaping global power dynamics and impacting US decision space.
The week of July 18-24, 2025, saw Beijing use infrastructure, enforcement, and diplomacy to build cross-domain leverage, yet its responses revealed more pressure absorption than strategic initiative.
1. China Launches Construction of World's Largest Hydropower Dam in Tibet
Chinese Premier Li Qiang on July 19 officially launched construction of the Motuo (Medog) Hydropower Station on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, marking the start of what will become the world's largest hydropower facility. The $167 billion project is expected to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually, triple the output of the Three Gorges Dam.
Why it matters:
This marks Beijing's most assertive move yet to establish control over critical water resources flowing to downstream nations. The dam’s location at the “Great Bend” of the Yarlung Tsangpo, before it becomes the Brahmaputra River in India, grants China leverage over downstream water security. The timing, amid rising Sino-Indian tension, signals Beijing’s willingness to pursue infrastructure dominance despite geopolitical backlash.
Implications for US National Security:
Coercion Risk to US Partners: China’s control over the Brahmaputra headwaters enhances its leverage over key US strategic partners India and Bangladesh, potentially complicating future military coordination or crisis response in South Asia.
Long-Term Terrain Dominance: The dam exemplifies how China uses large-scale infrastructure to shape geopolitical reality and environmental dependency, creating new tools of statecraft outside conventional deterrence frameworks.
Strategic Signaling: The project reinforces a message that China will prioritize its regional dominance goals, even when doing so risks confrontation with US-aligned states.
2. Beijing Intensifies Strategic Minerals Smuggling Crackdown
On July 19, China's National Export Control Coordination Office convened an emergency summit with eight key agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security, announcing “zero tolerance” enforcement against smuggling of strategic minerals. Targets include gallium, germanium, rare earths, and tungsten.
Why it matters:
This escalation signals Beijing’s commitment to leveraging its dominant position in critical minerals amid trade friction with the US. By criminalizing previously tolerated gray-market flows and involving intelligence agencies, Beijing is converting economic supply chains into national security levers.
Implications for US National Security:
Defense Supply Chain Pressure: US military and dual-use manufacturers face growing exposure to Chinese resource chokepoints, increasing the urgency of allied critical mineral diversification strategies.
Escalatory Model Development: China’s interagency enforcement model may serve as a precursor to broader “legal warfare” targeting US-linked firms or allied partners, raising costs of future economic coercion resistance.
Strategic Narrative Framing: China’s sovereignty justification blunts US trade pressure messaging, potentially influencing third-country support for future sanctions or controls.
3. China Protests Philippines Over Taiwan and Maritime Issues
On July 18, China’s Foreign Ministry summoned Philippine Ambassador Jaime FlorCruz to issue “stern representations” regarding Philippine positions on Taiwan, South China Sea disputes, and deepening security ties with the US. The unusually broad complaint came via Director-General Liu Jinsong.
Why it matters:
Beijing is signaling unease with Manila’s emergence as a frontline state in the US Indo-Pacific strategy. The multi-issue protest reflects growing frustration with the Philippines’ alignment on Taiwan, regional basing, and contested waters.
Implications for US National Security:
Regional Flashpoint Activation: China's diplomatic escalation suggests potential upticks in gray-zone maritime activity, requiring heightened US INDOPACOM posture calibration and crisis signaling preparation.
Alliance Friction Risk: The protest serves as a wedge-testing maneuver, assessing whether intensified US-Philippines military ties can withstand sustained Chinese coercion.
Information Space Contest: Beijing’s narrative strategy complicates US efforts to maintain clarity around lawful presence and partner legitimacy in contested maritime zones.
4. US-China Trade Talks Scheduled for Stockholm
On July 23, China’s Commerce Ministry confirmed Vice Premier He Lifeng will travel to Sweden (July 27–30) for trade talks with US counterparts. The agenda centers on extending the August 12 tariff truce deadline.
Why it matters:
Beijing has successfully shifted punitive US tariffs into a slow-moving negotiation process, maintaining economic stability without meeting structural reform demands. The talks offer breathing space for Chinese export sectors amid global headwinds.
Implications for US National Security:
Strategic Delay Tactic: China uses the talks to defer structural economic reform while preserving exports, limiting the effectiveness of US leverage and creating time asymmetry in strategic competition.
Dependency Lock-In Risk: Maintaining the current tariff pause may entrench US exposure to Chinese-controlled production ecosystems, undermining longer-term de-risking goals.
Narrative Undercut: Beijing’s managed, moderate tone may erode international support for US decoupling or control efforts, especially among fence-sitting partners.
5. China-EU Summit Highlights Deepening Strategic Divergence
At the July 24 China-EU Summit, President Xi Jinping urged Europe to make the “right strategic choice,” while EU leaders pressed for trade rebalancing and tougher controls on rare earth dependencies. Originally a two-day summit, it was compressed into one amid rising tensions.
Why it matters:
Xi’s direct appeal - and the shortened summit - highlight Beijing’s concern over growing EU alignment with US positions on trade, human rights, and Ukraine. The event revealed China’s struggle to prevent transatlantic coordination.
Implications for US National Security:
Allied Leverage Opportunity: EU willingness to confront China on trade and security provides Washington with a stronger basis for coordinated tech controls, supply chain defenses, and China de-risking.
Transatlantic Cohesion Signal: China’s failure to wedge the EU away from the US reinforces strategic unity across the alliance, complicating Beijing’s attempts to isolate or play off US partners.
Narrative Reversal: The summit’s failure gives US policymakers a window to reinforce the message that China is an unreliable partner, shaping European opinion toward stronger containment postures.
Strategic Outlook
The week of July 18–24 showcased Beijing’s implementation of Comprehensive National Power (综合国力) doctrine across infrastructure, resource control, and diplomatic messaging. The Motuo dam establishes leverage over Himalayan water flows. The minerals crackdown reflects fusion of trade, law enforcement, and intelligence. Friction with the Philippines and EU reveals China’s challenge in managing multiple confrontations simultaneously.
Together, these moves mirror long-held Unrestricted Warfare principles: integrating economic, legal, and diplomatic levers to shape adversary behavior without kinetic conflict. Yet many of Beijing’s actions this week appear reactive, responding to pressure rather than seizing initiative.
For US national security strategy, this week underscored two imperatives: to disrupt China’s domain-spanning leverage-building and to capitalize on Beijing’s growing diplomatic vulnerabilities.
Coordinated, multi-domain counterpressure can exploit these tensions if the US and its allies remain aligned and strategically patient.