Trump is good for China, but is he good for the U.S.?

By Sam Bresnick After a rocky period at the outset of President Trump’s second term, the U.S.-China relationship has found its groove. So said several Chinese government officials and academics with whom I formally met during a recent trip to Beijing. A China-focused researcher, I lived in Beijing before the pandemic, and I returned after over six years as part of a delegation of China hands. While the city had not changed all that much, save for several new subway lines, I was struck by the whiff of triumphalism that permeated the Chinese policy community. Whereas the Biden administration’s approach to China was marked by “zero-sum ideological and technological competition,” Trump’s more transactional nature, some academics and think tankers argued, had produced a reset in relations that would benefit both sides. U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, Now that the ugly spats over tariffs and rare-earth export controls were in the rear-view mirror, they said, the two countries could get down to the hard but necessary work of building a “win-win” relationship and boosting coordination across trade, technology, and security issues, mostly through the boards of trade and investment, as well as a still amorphous dialogue on AI risks. One particularly exuberant discussant even claimed that Trump’s less hawkish approach to China amounted to an “evolution” in U.S. foreign policy. My interlocutors were quick to assuage any fear that China would threaten this emerging détente by overreaching. The benefits of a relaxation in tensions, they suggested, would keep Beijing on its best behavior on the international stage. They even argued that China was mourning the United States’ withdrawal from various multilateral diplomacy initiatives. Though Beijing has played down Trump’s notion of an emerging U.S.-China “G-2,” Chinese observers increasingly view the president’s policies as a boon for their country. He has walked back his aggressive tariff policies, relaxed export controls on high-end AI semiconductors, and paused arms shipments to Taiwan, all while praising President Xi Jinping’s leadership and China’s power. Consider the pause in arms sales to Taiwan. Deterrence across the strait hinges on the margin between the two sides. A delay in shipments shifts the balance of power toward Beijing, potentially empowering it to further coerce the island. Here, Chinese officials are not welcoming a pause that serves the interests of both the United States and China countries, but a change to the balance of power between Beijing and Taipei. The same logic applies to the U.S. pullout from multilateral institutions. A seat the United States vacates is one China, or its proxies, can fill. On issues like these, the Chinese strategic community’s satisfaction with Trump’s policies constitutes evidence in need of weighing. Sitting in Beijing, it was hard not to agree with many of these points. While China has plenty of economic problems of its own, including a declining property sector, high youth unemployment, and shaky consumption figures, Trump appears to be handing Beijing a strategic lifeline while contributing to the diminution of U.S. power and prestige. He has damaged U.S. alliances, perhaps irrevocably; cut science and technology funding by billions of dollars; chilled the high-skilled immigration that has long fueled U.S. innovation; and contributed to damaging domestic political polarization that saps the country’s energy and ability to act. The Chinese officials and academics I met, many of them former diplomats, were too polite to fully round out the picture of Trump’s harms to long-term U.S. competitiveness. None of this is to say easing tensions offers nothing for the United States. Washington would be well served to explore resetting the broader bilateral trade and economic relationship, to determine which Chinese investments in the United States can be sufficiently de-risked, and to pursue AI-related discussions to reduce near-term risks. Beyond trying to get along with Beijing, however, Trump’s China policies do not amount to a coherent strategy. The broader point is that the eagerness with which the Chinese officials and academics welcomed Trump’s approach should give us pause. Yes, the Biden administration’s China policy carried risks; Beijing felt as though Washington was intent on containment and on blunting its rise as a technological power. Now, however, Trump’s approach provides Beijing the strategic space to pursue its interests, all while weakening the U.S. global position through poor economic, security, and technology choices. Trump’s go-it-alone transactionalism is helping Beijing and hurting Washington. China’s disdain for Biden’s multilateralism was itself a signal. It was a clear measure of how much more threatening Beijing found that approach. While it is important to work cooperatively with China where possible, a better China policy starts with leveraging ties with the like-minded partner countries that Trump has spent his second term pushing away. __________________ Sam Bresnick is a research fellow and an Andrew W. Marshall Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). The post Trump is good for China, but is he good for the U.S.? appeared first on CuencaHighLife.