In September 2015, President Xi Jinping stood in the Rose Garden next to President Barack Obama and made an unambiguous commitment: China had “no intention to militarize” the artificial islands it was building in the South China Sea. The statement carried the solemn authority of a great power — a promise between world leaders, witnessed by the international community.
Yet within three years, satellite imagery revealed military-grade airstrips stretching across previously submerged reefs. Hardened missile shelters dotted landscapes that had once been underwater and advanced radar installations scanned surrounding seas. The “civilian outposts” had transformed into forward military bases projecting power across one of the world’s most critical waterways.
This dramatic reversal, from public commitment to calculated breach, exemplifies a pattern that has defined China’s international relations for seven decades. The Chinese Communist Party has perfected strategic deception — the art of making promises it never intends to keep when the calculus favors breaking them.
This isn’t merely diplomatic inconsistency but a deliberate strategy that has yielded extraordinary dividends across decades of patient execution. As the Trump administration resumes trade talks with China, American representatives would do well to keep this history in mind.
The seeds were planted during China’s civil war, when the Communist Party’s survival depended on strategic misrepresentation. In the 1940s, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai presented themselves to U.S. diplomats not as hardened revolutionaries but as moderate “agrarian reformers” seeking democratic change. This calculated deception yielded tangible benefits: diminished American support for the Nationalists and, ultimately, a Communist victory in 1949.
The pattern continued with deadly consequences just a year later. As American forces approached the Chinese border during the Korean War, Beijing repeatedly assured the world it would not intervene — right until hundreds of thousands of “volunteer” soldiers poured across the Yalu River in a massive surprise offensive. The resulting conflict cost millions of lives and cemented the Cold War division of Asia that persists to this day.
By the 1970s, as geopolitical calculations shifted, party leaders recognized the value of rapprochement with the U.S. During President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit, Mao and Zhou downplayed their revolutionary ideology and the ongoing brutality of the Cultural Revolution, strategically masking their domestic repression to secure diplomatic recognition and economic benefits. China also signed the Sino-U.K. Joint Declaration on Hong Kong in 1984, promising to keep the status quo for 50 years — before violating that agreement when the Communist Party cracked down on protests in 2019.
By the late 1980s, China had learned that Americans suffer from political amnesia. By offering the appearance of cooperation and reform today, they could make Americans forget the deceptions of yesterday.
This approach produced remarkable dividends. Within a decade, Western companies were investing billions in China, transferring technology and expertise that would become the foundation for China’s economic miracle. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre briefly disrupted this process, but Western businesses soon returned, teaching Chinese leaders that the consequences of broken promises are temporary, while the benefits often prove permanent.
This pattern has been most consequential in China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Chinese negotiators made expansive commitments to market reforms, intellectual property protection and non-discriminatory treatment of foreign companies. Western leaders, intoxicated by the vision of accessing a billion consumers, convinced themselves that economic liberalization would inevitably lead to political openness.
“The leadership has concluded that their country would be better off with more competition, more rule of law, and more contact with the rest of the world,” declared President Bill Clinton. “They believe that if they open their economy, they inevitably open their society.”
Two decades later, the reality stands in sharp contrast. China has implemented its WTO commitments selectively, engaging in large-scale industrial policy and restricting market access when it serves domestic priorities. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative estimates that U.S. companies lose between $225 billion and $600 billion annually to Chinese intellectual property theft. Millions of American jobs have been lost to China, which dominates global manufacturing.
Yet this hasn’t deterred American policymakers from signing more unenforceable deals with Beijing, as when China pledged to President Trump to increase purchases of U.S. manufactured goods during 2020 and 2021 — failing to honor its commitment a year into the agreement.
This pattern found yet another expression during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite international commitments, Chinese officials delayed informing the World Health Organization about human-to-human transmission, silenced whistleblowers and restricted information-sharing. China, while implementing strict containment domestically, simultaneously opposed international travel restrictions and pressured against declaring a global emergency. Once again, a commitment to international norms — in this case, obligations under International Health Regulations — was subordinated to domestic political imperatives.
Understanding this pattern requires seeing the strategic logic behind it. As a Leninist party-state primarily committed to self-preservation, the Chinese Communist Party approaches international commitments instrumentally, evaluating them on the sole basis of utility. The “century of humiliation” trained Chinese leaders to distrust outsiders and use deception when necessary. As Deng Xiaoping put it in a famous speech, “hide capacity and bide time.”
Moreover, China has learned that the costs of breaking its commitments are often low. International outrage fades, economic penalties are absorbed by a massive domestic market and Western companies and governments — driven by greed or naivete — remain eager to access Chinese consumers despite repeated disappointments. The Chinese Communist Party has mastered what might be called the “liar’s dividend”: violating commitments often carries fewer costs than honoring them, especially when enforcement mechanisms are weak and other parties have short memories.
Understanding this pattern doesn’t mean abandoning engagement with China, it means approaching engagement with clear-eyed realism. Future agreements must include robust verification mechanisms, specific timelines and meaningful safeguards lifted upon compliance.
American policymakers must also recognize their own role in enabling this pattern by repeatedly downplaying violations in pursuit of market access. Breaking this cycle requires institutional memory and consistent enforcement across administrations.
Perhaps most importantly, U.S. strategy must acknowledge that some aspects of the Chinese system are inherently incompatible with many international norms. No amount of diplomatic pressure will convince the Chinese Communist Party to embrace values that threaten its monopoly on power. Rather than expecting transformative change through engagement, U.S. policy should focus on specific, verifiable actions that serve mutual interests, particularly amidst competition between the two great powers.
After seven decades of strategic commitment-breaking, perhaps the most dangerous illusion is the belief that the next Chinese promise will somehow be different. As American representatives negotiate trade with Beijing, they would do well to secure not just the “best” trade deal for the U.S., but one that accounts for the possibility of deception.
Mathis Bitton is a Ph.D. candidate in government at Harvard University studying Chinese historical thought. George Yean is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard studying Sino-U.S. trade relations.
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