Abroad, Xi has been forced to overhaul his multibillion-dollar "Belt and Road" initiative to build railways and other infrastructure. In response to complaints that Beijing is saddling some countries with too much debt, the government has written off some loans and renegotiated contracts.
The tariff war was sparked by years of yawning U.S. trade deficits with China and by complaints — by the Trump administration and many independent trade experts — that Beijing was engaging in predatory and illicit practices, including the theft of technology.
The first U.S. penalties targeted high-tech Chinese goods that American officials said benefited from improper support from Beijing.
Its impact spread as President Donald Trump extended tariff increases to Chinese exporters of handbags, furniture and other goods.
Those higher import taxes heightened the threat of job losses — a political risk for an unelected party that derives its claim to power in no small part from having managed three decades of explosive economic growth.
On the surface at least, the impact of Friday's U.S. tariff hike "is relatively modest," Brian Coulton, chief economist for Fitch Ratings, said in a report. But if Trump proceeds with his threat to extend 25% tariffs to all imports from China, that "would be a much more material threat to China's growth outlook," Coulton said.
"Renewed weakening in China would rekindle financial market concerns about global growth risks," he said.
Xi's personal standing has been hurt by slowing growth and by last year's decision to eliminate term limits for his office as president, said Zhang Lifang, an independent political commentator in Beijing.
"I think these two things are very stressful for him, both economically and politically," Zhang said.
The United States and Europe have been increasing the cost and complexity of Chinese acquisition of foreign technology or blocking it outright. In October, the European Union tentatively approved the trade bloc's first rules on foreign investments in sensitive sectors.
That step followed criticism of Chinese purchases of European technology vendors that are considered vital national assets, including German robot maker Kuka. Chinese buyers have also acquired Sweden's Volvo Cars, Swiss agri-tech supplier Syngenta and IBM Corp.'s low-end server business.
In the United States, Trump vetoed the 2017 purchase of a chipmaker, Lattice Semiconductor, that was financed by a Chinese government fund.
Foreign manufacturers of consumer electronics and other goods already are shifting investments to Southeast Asia to cut costs, thereby hurting demand for Chinese parts suppliers and sapping revenue they would use to develop technology.
"Boardrooms of multinationals, including possibly Chinese companies, might decide they need to have more manufacturing capability outside China to reduce this risk," Biswas said.
That shift, accelerated by the pressure from U.S. tariffs, promises a potential windfall for other Asian economies.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has suggested that the U.S.-China tariff war might help her government woo back manufacturers who had moved to the mainland in search of lower costs.
"Our goal is to speed up Taiwanese business people's coming back to rebuild a high added-value supply chain and encourage industries to transform and upgrade themselves," Tsai said.