US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) have made final preparations for their first meeting today and tomorrow in Florida. The meeting has the potential to be Trump’s most important yet with any foreign leader, given the stakes at play in what is, in many respects, the US’ most important bilateral relationship.
While economic and security fundamentals will largely determine the course of ties in years to come, personal chemistry between the two leaders — or its absence — could also be key.
During former US president Barack Obama’s presidency, the fact that relations remained generally cordial reflected, in significant part, the personal commitment of Obama and Xi to bilateral stability.
Both recognized the super-priority of the relationship and Washington pursued a strategy that promoted cooperation on softer issues like climate change, while seeking constructive engagement on vexed, harder issues such as South China Sea tensions.
Meanwhile, Xi outlined his desire to fundamentally redevelop a new type of great power relationship with the US to avoid the conflictual great power patterns of the past. This is an audacious goal, which still lacks any obvious definition and it is not certain if the pledge remains in place given the frequent bellicosity of Trump to China.
The fact that the mood music has changed so much means the meeting is particularly important for Trump, who has a weight of expectation to meet after so much anti-Beijing rhetoric. Underlying his often hawkish sentiment appears to be a conviction that China represents a primary threat to US interests globally.
Last week, Trump asserted the meeting with Xi would be a “difficult one” because “we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses,” fueling concerns about a potential trade war with China. Earlier this year, he called Beijing “grand champions of currency manipulation,” asserting that China is keeping its exchange rate artificially low to secure an export advantage.
On Friday last week, Trump signed executive orders aimed at identifying abuses that are driving the US trade deficit — which was about US$500 billion last year — and clamping down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports. Separately, the Office of the US Trade Representative asserted that China’s industrial policies and financial support for industries such as steel have resulted in global overproduction and an export flood that has distorted markets.
On the face of it, rising tensions between the US and China appear likely in coming months. Yet it remains genuinely unclear whether Trump will up the ante or try to put bilateral relations on a more even keel after the early disruptions of his presidency.
One of Trump’s first acts after winning the election in November last year was to accept a telephone call from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), believed to be the first direct contact between a sitting US president-elect or US president and their Taiwanese counterpart since the 1970s. This was much to Beijing’s chagrin, as was his public questioning of the US’ longstanding “one China” policy.
Yet, since then he seems to have reversed course and accepted much of this decades-long framework of Washington-Beijing relations.
Whether a diplomatic or bellicose Trump shows up at the meeting, he needs to be seen to secure concessions during his presidency from China. Trump has asserted that “everything is under negotiation,” and he might ultimately be looking for a grand bargain with Beijing extending beyond the economics arena — where one of his requests is to see the yuan floated — to security.
A string of security issues are on the agenda, including the South China Sea. This topic came to the fore again when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Beijing should “not be allowed access” to its new, artificial islands there, a sensitive comment given China’s animus toward US sea and air maneuvers near its borders.
However, North Korea is the most pressing security issue. Trump has acknowledged that Beijing can play a potentially very constructive role here, but has expressed exasperation that it is not doing more to pressure Pyongyang. Tillerson warned last month that the US policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea is now over and “all options” are on the table.
The differences between the Washington and Beijing on this potential crisis stem from the fact that, concerned as Beijing is about Pyongyang’s behavior, it does not want to push the regime so harshly that it becomes significantly destabilized.
This risks North Korea behaving even more unpredictably, and/or the outside possibility of the regime’s implosion, which Beijing does not believe would be in its best interests, not least as it could lead to instability on their shared border and the potential emergence of a pro-US successor government.
China is also concerned that the US might even be thinking, seriously, about a pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities. This is one reason Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) last month said that “China’s priority now is to flash the red light and apply the break to both [the US and North Korean] trains” to avoid collision.
Beijing’s concern here is not just irresponsibility from North Korea, but what it asserts is the US fanning the flames by last month beginning to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system to South Korea.
China vehemently opposes the THAAD, which it fears could be used for US espionage on its activities, as much as for targeting North Korean missiles.
Overall, the Trump-Xi meeting is not likely to see any decisive breakthroughs, but more likely intensify bilateral dialogue in areas such as trade and North Korea. After all of his anti-China rhetoric, Trump will ultimately need to secure concessions from Beijing and appears to be looking for a grand bargain to help underpin a renewed basis for bilateral relations.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
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