The view that the Chinese leadership was desperate to negotiate a trade deal, to avoid economic pain that could destabilize Chinese society and threaten the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on power, is common among China hawks in the United States. This analysis is partly accurate, but it has led many to draw false conclusions.

Since China first joined the World Trade Organisation a quarter century ago, it has developed a particularly Darwinian version of capitalism, in which companies must tolerate unending rounds of brutal price competition,