JP Morgan bets on joint action between China and the US.

Jamie Dimon , CEO of JP Morgan, met in Shanghai with Vice Premier He Lifeng , Xi Jinping's right-hand man on economic and financial matters, and confirmed the decision to "deepen" the commitment of the world's largest investment bank to the People's Republic.

This meeting was the first to take place since the historic Geneva summit, where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary He Lifeng agreed to reduce tariffs from 145% to 30% and from 125% to 10%, respectively, and to maintain the new tariffs for 90 days while a final agreement is negotiated that would set a joint course for the two superpowers, guided by a cooperative, not an antagonistic, approach.

He Lifeng told Jamie Dimon that China is willing to increasingly open up to large American companies so that they can "continue to contribute to the sustainable, healthy, and ever-deepening development of economic and trade relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States."

The key here is the "joint development" formula that China proposes to large American transnational corporations, and through them – via Scott Bessent – ​​to President Donald Trump.

Of course, each side has its own priority. The US's is to systematically reduce the dual fiscal and current account deficits , whose growth has become unsustainable.

The US fiscal deficit will reach 6.4% of GDP in 2024, triggering a $1.9 trillion increase in federal government debt, which already stands at $36 trillion and is growing by $1.2 trillion annually. The result is that interest payments on this debt now reach $1.1 trillion annually, exceeding military and defense spending. At this rate, public debt will exceed 125% of US GDP by 2033.

The current account deficit will reach US$1.9 trillion in 2024, supported by an annual trade deficit of US$1.1 trillion, revealing the tremendous weakness of the US export market at the moment; all this is accompanied by a phenomenal consumption boom that climbed to 87% of GDP last year.

Secretary Bessent began systematically reducing the fiscal deficit this year and aims to cut it in half within three years (3% annually).

Bessent also aims to eliminate the current account deficit by doubling oil and gas production over the next 10 months, as well as increasing exports to the 130 countries with which he is negotiating to open their markets to U.S. foreign sales.

For China, the crucial issue is to increase domestic consumption , which currently accounts for only 38% of GDP, and in this task, large American companies, especially those in the financial and stock market sectors (of which JP Morgan is an archetypal case), play a truly central role.

JP Morgan was the first foreign company to establish its own futures market on the major stock exchanges in the People's Republic of China, and as of 2023, it acquired full ownership of its financial asset management business, allowing it to end the joint venture it had until then.

CEO Dimon just stated in Shanghai that the prospects for China's high-tech industry, especially in the crucial field of artificial intelligence, are truly formidable, especially after the resounding success of the startup DeepSeek. It is to this sector that JP Morgan will focus its enormous investment capacity.

Xi Jinping maintains as a central strategy that China must achieve the greatest “self-sufficiency” in its advanced technological production, without this implying in any way the search for some kind of isolationist autarky.

China's strategy is, by definition, "protracted" because it stems from Mao Zedong's long-term vision, which prevailed in a 20-year civil war and a national war against Japan that lasted fifteen years. And all this occurred in a country whose national identity stems from its 5,000-year history.

Now the "Long March" of the People's Republic focuses on modifying the accumulation regime, especially the crucial pairing of savings and investment.

Therefore, the priority at this historical stage is to move from the gigantic investment made in manufacturing and export capacity to a systematic increase in domestic consumption , until reaching levels worthy of a society of extremely high productivity and competitive aptitude, which are characteristic of a community of "shared prosperity," as advocated by Xi Jinping.

The new development at this point is that the "common front" for achieving this historic feat must now be formed with the United States , starting from that truly decisive turning point that was the Geneva agreement with the American delegation headed by Bessent.

China has 5,000 years of uninterrupted state history. That's why it always changes with the times, but it does so within a profound permanence. That is its destiny.