One of the key planks of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was a promise to confront China. In his view, Beijing was Washington’s principal rival, challenging the American supremacy particularly on trade, but also with military displays of strength in the South China Sea. Unsurprisingly, the ascension of Trump to the presidency has rocked U.S.-China relations. President Trump has imposed unilateral tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports and become more vocal on rising to confrontations between the United States and China, including in newer realms of competition such as international espionage. SFS faculty experts weighed in on the subject in the media, even raising the prospect that the relationship as a whole is entering a new paradigm with as-yet untested borders and rules of play.
The Problem of Trade
Observers of U.S. trade policy have struggled to characterize President Trump’s approach to the issue. Rodney D. Ludema, Professor of Economics and former senior member of President Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out in a piece in UK Trade Policy Observatory, that rhetorically the Commander-in-Chief has presented himself as a diehard protectionist, even declaring in his inaugural address, “we will follow two simple rules: buy American, hire American.” Regarding China, this rhetoric has manifested into the aforementioned tariffs, which have developed into a “full-blown trade war.” Despite Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, the President has shown a willingness to make trade deals with other developed nations (such as the EU, UK, and Japan), potentially as a means to box China out.
David Edelstein, Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program and a Georgetown College Vice-Dean of Faculty, explained the unsustainable nature of this building competition, in a Washington Post op-ed. He notes that the international system of liberal trade that has taken shape since World War II has benefitted both China and the United States. Therefore, despite Trump’s anxieties that Beijing wants to drastically reshape the international order, the two powers have a shared interest in maintaining the status quo that has garnered them both so much profit.
Dennis Wilder, Assistant Professor of the Practice and Managing Director of the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, commented on the Chinese view of the trade issue in the Washington Post. He described the frustration of Chinese trade negotiators with their U.S. counterparts. As the Chinese desperately try to normalize the trading relationship, they’ve been stumped by U.S. internal politics and the inconsistencies therein. Successive negotiations with different Trump administration officials (Wilbur Ross followed by Steve Mnuchin) have fallen through as the President has vetoed proposals via Twitter or by imposing fresh rounds of tariffs. Beijing’s trade officials’ failure to understand the hierarchical relationship between Trump and his cabinet members and his habit of contradicting them has, in the words of Wilder, left them “stuck in a rut.”
Ludema suggests that Trump’s motivations on trade protectionism directed at China extend beyond the details of the subject to anxiety surrounding China’s military buildup, territorial ambitions in the South China Sea, soft power assertiveness in other regions, cyber warfare, and infiltration of U.S. security-related supply chains.
Confrontation With Force?
Although U.S.-China trade issues have earned many headlines, the tension has spread to the military realm as well. Michael Green, Chair in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy and director of the Asian Studies Program, discussed the “downward trend” in military cooperation between China and the United States in a CNBC story. A number of high-level security engagements between the two have been canceled or scaled-down in light of the trade difficulties and disputes over naval navigation in the South China Sea. Green states that actual conflict is highly unlikely due to technological differences: “The People’s Liberation Army itself calculates it is 15 years behind the U.S. so this is not a window where China would have the confidence that it can get what it wants by direct military confrontation.”
Edelstein similarly notes the prospect of military flare-ups. He wrote that since long before Trump, the U.S. military has been preparing for a more aggressive China, though their efforts have been hindered by American-Chinese economic ties that have expanded Beijing’s financial capacity to strengthen its military. Edelstein emphasizes how competition between Beijing and Washington will focus on non-conventional capacities: both countries must now consider what role cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, and other technological tools will have in a Sino-American arms race.
Caitlin Talmadge, Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program, echoes Edelstein’s wariness about Chinese military and capacity build-up. Quoted in Foreign Policy on the President’s decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, she emphasized Beijing’s long-term growth in conventional military power, while simultaneously stating that “It isn’t obvious that this one area of competition [intermediate-range nuclear weaponry] is going to be dramatically more important than” non-conventional tools such as “cyberspace.”
Can a Meeting Ease Tensions?
In light of the heightening tensions between the two great powers, there is growing consensus among onlookers that only a meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi could bring a solution. Dennis Wilder, in a quote on ChinaDaily.com, explains how presidential meetings are often called “action-forcing events.” With summits such as these, there is an understanding that it’s the end of the road in terms of diplomacy – there is no higher level of talks – so the problems either get fixed, enter a deadlock, or spiral out of control.
Wilder discussed the prospect for such a meeting during the G20 Summit, scheduled for November 30-December 1, in a different ChinaDaily.com article. He says that the political climate following the midterms will have calmed by that point, potentially allowing for a return to the halcyon days of Trump and Xi’s initial meetings at Mar-a-Lago and in Beijing that were characterized by smiles and photo-ops.
Changing Paradigm
Despite hopes that a summit between Trump and Xi might cool China-U.S. relations, other experts have suggested that this atmosphere of sustained competition between the two countries has become the new normal.
Edelstein, in his Washington Post op-ed, explains that, until recently, divergent U.S. and Chinese “time horizons” permitted cooperation on a range of issues. While the United States was concerned with confronting the immediate threat of post-9/11 terror, it paid little attention to the long-term challenge posed by China. Meanwhile, China was “biding its time,” growing military and economic capacities so that it would be prepared to challenge the United States when the moment was right.
Evan Medeiros, Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies and the Cling Family Senior Fellow in US-China Relations, concurs. In an interview with Bloomberg, he says that this atmosphere of “persistent and consistent tensions” in Sino-American relations is here to stay. He describes how President Obama was more focused on cooperation with Beijing, due to shared foreign policy goals, such as containing Iranian nuclear ambitions and halting the 2008 global financial crisis. In contrast, President Trump’s emphasis on confrontation, he claims, results from the U.S. perspective of a more conservative, less reform-minded China showing increased aggression in the South China Sea. This, Medeiros states, has opened up competition in a number of arenas: economic, security, technological, and even ideological.