US President Donald Trump takes pride in his ability to charm and cajole competitors, skills he honed as a real-estate developer and that he now applies to international trade and security negotiations.
He believes the appeal of his personality and the amicable relations he has cultivated with the US’ two most dangerous adversaries, China and North Korea, have already reaped dividends, while acknowledging the continuing need to overcome decades of failed policies.
So far, he has certainly gotten the receptive attention of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but that is more likely because of the mailed fist he revealed under the velvet glove.
For Pyongyang, that was the three-part “maximum pressure” campaign over denuclearization — economic sanctions, believable saber-rattling and overt challenges to regime legitimacy.
For Beijing, it was the spinoff credibility that Trump initially earned with his steely approach to North Korea, along with the secondary sanctions on Beijing for undermining those against Pyongyang, and the trade war he defiantly launched against China.
Nevertheless, the president persists in claiming success for his man-to-man friendship with Xi and Kim. Some observers recall the unquenchable optimism of former US president Barack Obama’s lead official on Asian affairs who seemed incapable of referring to Beijing’s communist officials as anything other than “our Chinese friends.”
Like the Obama team, Trump fails to note that the personal warmth is not reciprocated. Xi never calls the US president a friend or expresses any admiration for his leadership qualities. (Kim, according to the president, does send occasional “love letters,” but their content remains secret.)
However, the Chinese do transmit flattering messages to Trump through useful emissaries.
Michael Pillsbury, an outside adviser with close ties to both the White House and Chinese officials, told a C-Span audience that China’s leaders are impressed with Trump’s “big brain.”
A professed former “panda hugger,” then a supposed “realist” on China, Pillsbury has become a born-again panda-whisperer to the president. He urges Trump to abandon his earlier approach — the stronger policies favored by militaristic “super hawks” such as former US national security adviser John Bolton.
Most recently, he praised Trump’s warm congratulations to Xi on the occasion of Beijing’s military parade extravaganza celebrating 70 years of Chinese Communist Party dictatorship — even as it was cracking down on mostly peaceful protesters in Hong Kong.
In response to critics, Pillsbury explained that the president’s message was intended to maintain his personal relationship with Xi while confronting China on trade.
He said Trump “does not want to start a Cold War with China or seek to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party.”
To further demonstrate his good intentions, Trump told Xi in a June 18 telephone call that he would remain quiet on Hong Kong if trade talks progressed.
When members of both parties questioned the propriety of the statement, Trump injected a measure of moral concern and said he hoped Xi would “do the right thing” regarding Hong Kong.
In his subsequent speech at the UN, Trump made a more fulsome human rights appeal: “The world fully expects that the Chinese government will … protect Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system and democratic ways of life.”
He said Xi’s international prestige is on the line: “How China chooses to handle this situation will say a great deal about its role in the world in the future. We are all counting on President Xi as a great leader.”
Xi, not impressed by the preemptive compliments, gave his answer in remarks on Oct. 1: “Unity is iron and steel; unity is a source of strength.”
Referring explicitly to both Hong Kong and Taiwan, he declared: “The complete reunification of the motherland is an inevitable trend; it is what the greater national interests entail and what all Chinese people aspire for. No one and no force can ever stop it!” (Beijing’s exclamation point.)
Xi has skillfully played off one issue against another in the multi-dimensional US-China relationship, always in the cause of advancing Beijing’s core interests and long-term ambitions.
As this article was nearing completion, the already complex dynamics of the US-China relationship suddenly became even more complicated, and Xi was given a new card to play to the US’ disadvantage.
Trump publicly asked the Chinese communists to unearth damaging information on his political opponent, former US vice president Joe Biden.
Xi, after all, has proven adept at discovering, or manufacturing, evidence of corruption to destroy his own political enemies.
Trump also mentioned the next phase of trade talks: “The Chinese are coming in next week… I have a lot of options on China. But if they don’t do what we want, I have tremendous, tremendous power.”
His warning about linkage and consequences seemed clearly to apply to the trade issues, not to US domestic politics.
However, it has been reported that in the same June conversation with Xi where he promised to tread lightly on Hong Kong, he also did make a partisan political appeal.
Given that background, reporters asked whether a possible China corruption investigation would influence the trade talks. The president said: “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
Yet, the seed has been planted. It would be unfortunate if Xi and his colleagues believe they now have new leverage and less need to be cooperative, not only on trade but also on the range of security and human rights issues in contention with the US.
If China’s leaders, mistakenly or not, sense that kind of opening, they could harden their stance on Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Uighurs and other issues.
Paradoxically, it could work the other way as well. Trump, aware of the suggestion of linkage and vulnerability his comment has created, might well adopt an even firmer posture on one or more issues with China, including North Korea.
For a US president, addressing the human rights nightmares in both countries would constitute an important values act in its own right.
It also would serve as a non-kinetic way of restoring the progress his maximum pressure campaign was on the verge of making — and still could make — in the critical area of national, regional and global security.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense. He is a fellow at the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies and a member of the advisory committee of the Global Taiwan Institute.
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