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The United States and China: Ruptures and Realignments In No.9 2017 PUBLISHED BY THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS. WWW.UI.SE The United States and China: Ruptures and Realignments in Trump’s First Six Months Oliver Turner Donald Trump’s election as president of the to broadly follow the path trodden by Bar- United States in late 2016 brought expecta- rack Obama. Where do we stand six months tions of radical departures in US politics and after the election of Trump? What has been foreign policy. Of all the candidates – Re- President Trump’s early approach towards publican and Democrat – Trump was the China and what has been the Chinese re- most vocal on China during his campaign. sponse? What do the politics and His rhetoric swung from professing a ‘love’ worldviews of the Trump administration re- for China to claiming that it is guilty of ‘rap- veal about the balance of US-China rela- ing’ the United States. Yet his unwavering tions today? Who in the Trump administra- appeal to right wing populism ensured that tion has been influential in steering China in the winner-take-all, zero-sum world he policy? And what do Trump’s first six portrayed, Chinese gains were seen as the months in charge tell us about what the re- cause of American losses. Prior to the elec- mainder of his tenure might hold for US- tion it was widely expected that Hillary China relations? Ultimately, we find that Clinton would come to occupy the White within the bounds of US-China relations, House, and that while her long-time politi- Trump’s first six months as president have cal criticisms of China argued for modifica- been simultaneously of note and entirely tions in Washington’s relations with Bei- unremarkable. His extreme political naive- jing, she would in all likelihood have sought ties and idiosyncrasies have produced rup- tures in the relationship, while competing forces beyond his control have forced famil- presidency Trump sustained unusually iar realignments. pointed rhetoric towards China. He criti- cised Beijing for not requesting permission Turbulent beginnings to devalue its currency and pursue its island Throughout the modern history of US pres- building programme in the South China idential campaigns, China has been utilised Sea; for removing ‘massive amounts of for short-term political gain. Ronald money and wealth’ from the United States; Reagan, George Bush Jr. and Barack and for doing ‘little to help’ on the security Obama each pledged to toughen up on problems posed by North Korea. China before moderating their positions in office. To this extent, the China-bashing of Ordinarily, such unfiltered accusations the 2016 election was distinguishable, but from a sitting US president would be ex- only in its veracity and driven largely by pected to provoke more bitter indignation. Republican candidates seeking to out- Yet already Trump’s controversial style had Trump Trump on his hyperbole.1 ‘They become routine. Foreign governments suck the blood out of us and we owe them quickly recognised Trump’s crude and out- money’, Trump once argued.2 Donald spoken remarks as the articulations of a po- Trump eventually won the presidency on litically novice businessman and reality tel- the platform of ‘Make America Great evision star more concerned with delighting Again’, with its foreign policy tagline of his loyal audience than transitioning to judi- ‘America First’. This came with such his- cious statesman. Nowhere was this more torically familiar commitments as labelling evident than in Beijing, which responded to Beijing a currency manipulator and slowing Trump’s rhetoric with palpable restraint; the loss of manufacturing jobs to China. following Trump’s conversation with Tsai Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs of up to Ing-wen, Chinese state media explained, 45% on Chinese imports had less historical with a hint of condescension, that the call precedent. reflected his ‘inexperience in dealing with foreign affairs’.4 As president-elect in December 2016, Trump spoke to Taiwanese president Tsai The “China problem” of past presidential Ing-wen, breaking decades of established campaigns, along with its proposed solu- protocol and challenging the stability of the tions, was made simple to resonate with vot- so-called ‘One China Policy’. So too did he ers; the inconvenient truth that US-China suggest that US commitment to the policy – relations are a complex web of myriad ac- the bedrock of US-China relations – was no tors, institutions and forces over which longer unconditional. Accordingly, Washington has limited control is not easily Trump’s entry into the White House sold to the electorate. For Campaign Trump brought an early stress test for US-China re- of 2016 however, the China Problem was lations. Successive American presidents simple because it conformed to a narrow trod a path of cautious engagement with and generally crude worldview in which the China3, but it seemed possible that Trump United States had long been exploited by would carve serious ruptures into the rela- others due to the failures of the Washington tionship and steer them into unfamiliar ter- Establishment. For President Trump of rain. Indeed, during the early weeks of his 2017, the complexities of the relationship 2 © SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | NUMBER 9/2017 had not just to be repackaged to voters, but discovered for himself. In February 2017, Trump retracted the threat to reconsider the One China Policy A reversal of history(?) during his first conversation with Chinese Trump’s pride in his ability to strike deals president Xi Jinping. After meeting with Xi and accumulate wealth makes him less will- in March at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump ing to understand how the world works be- announced that he no longer considered yond the comfort of his business empire. China a currency manipulator. In short, Yet his introduction to the One China policy Trump bluffed with China but his threats highlights the point at which business ends were hollow and unconvincing and, in a re- and politics begins which he and his sup- versal of history, Beijing outmanoeuvred porters so keenly deny. For Trump, the pol- Washington with more sophisticated state- icy was there to be manipulated through craft. In The Art of the Deal Trump writes bombast and intimidation to win the ad- that, ‘You can’t be imaginative or entrepre- vantage over a rival. For the Chinese gov- neurial if you’ve got too much structure. I ernment it is much more. It is a function of prefer to come to work each day and just see history, culture, sovereignty and national what develops’.5 At Mar-a-Lago Xi quickly pride. The policy has no profit motive. It is convinced Trump of the complexities sur- not defined by stock value, liquidity or even rounding North Korea to Beijing’s ad- GDP. There is no real estate to sell off or vantage. Trump’s famous praise for auto- snap up. To accept Taiwanese autonomy, cratic leaders like Xi with “strongmen” per- according to this view, would be to accept a sonas masks his own weaknesses; his un- return to the so-called “Century of Humili- willingness to operate within pre-defined ation” of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twenti- structures and to look beyond the short term eth centuries, during which China was ex- makes him unprincipled, manipulable, and ploited by foreigners under the watch of im- liable to sudden shifts in attitude and behav- perial leaders who refused to engage with an iour. Trump admitted that ‘after listening evolving world they did not fully compre- for ten minutes’, he accepted that Beijing hend. was not so easily blamed over North Korea. Today, China and the United States are both Washington’s infighting led by administrations which draw strength Trump’s aggressive but ineffectual postur- from nationalist fervour. But while China’s ing in the early weeks of his presidency re- (particularly economic) nationalism is often vealed much to the Chinese leadership internationalist and outward-facing, creat- about how he might be managed over the ing and embracing global opportunities to next four years. It was also a demonstration further the cause at home, Trumpian nation- that Trump’s unorthodox bluster can repre- alism is more insular, paranoid and defen- sent little more than foaming surface rip- sive. It sees a world to be feared, defended ples, while deeper and more powerful un- against and kept out rather than grasped. dercurrents retain control over the direction Today’s technocratic Chinese leaders are of travel. Indeed, over the course of also increasingly skilled in modern diplo- Trump’s first months in charge, US-China macy, and in Donald Trump they see an op- policy has increasingly aligned with the portunity. more traditional position carved out by the 3 © SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | NUMBER 9/2017 presidential predecessors Trump derides for Yet the hyperbolic visions of Bannon and failing to protect the interests of the United Navarro, along with those of their allies and States. In part, this has been because Trump followers, are additionally laced with neo- formed a basic understanding of how the colonial rhetoric of the unacceptability and China Issue and its “solutions” are not as fundamental illegitimacy of China’s growth straightforward as he once imagined. So too and modernisation—in contemporary par- was it born from the structural constraints of lance, it’s ‘rise’. The Chinese ‘come here to office. the United States in front of our face’, Ban- non argues of China’s actions in the South Trump brought into the White House two China Sea which lies over 11,000 km from campaign supporters and China hawks: ap- the mainland United States, but where the pointing Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro United States – by simple virtue of being the White House Chief Strategist and Director United States – is unproblematically imag- of Trade and Industrial Policy respectively.
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