Just how far will reckless Trump push China?

Gordon H. Chang says a review of the US president’s words and deeds in the run-up to him taking office suggests a worrying lack of an overarching rationale, and we should brace for some rough times

Reading Time:4 minutes

Beijing is waiting to see how things will develop. But, an increasingly assertive China does not easily suffer threats or bluster. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 3:13pm, 20 Jan 2017Updated: 8:08pm, 20 Jan 2017

Sino-US relations in the age of Donald Trump is a hot topic, in part because nobody really knows what will happen. Uncertainty invites speculation. Many wonder what will happen next, given the new president’s belligerent, bombastic behaviour during the election campaign. He was rude to almost every social group in America and to many others around the world. He regularly blasted China, as a currency manipulator, a job-stealer and fabricator of climate change to disadvantage gullible Americans. He also compared his proposal for a wall in Mexico with the Great Wall of China, and probably thought that was a compliment for China.

But who really knows? What is one to make of his cosying up to Vladimir Putin and the Russians? Is there a sanjiao guanxi, or a ploy in triangular diplomacy, in the works? What is one to make of his thumb-in-the-eye phone call with Taiwan’s president ,Tsai Ing-wen, soon after his election? Does he want to use Taiwan as a “card” against Beijing? Trump then selected Iowa Governor Terry Branstad to be US ambassador to China. Branstad has had a long and friendly relationship with President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the choice is seen as positive for Sino-US relations. And then there was the public mutual admiration get-together with Jack Ma, after which Alibaba declared it could help create one million jobs in America under a Trump administration. Does any of this make logical sense?

Watch: What cards can President Trump play against China?

Trump himself probably doesn’t think about all of this very seriously or coherently. That can be said about much of his public behaviour and his tweets, and not just about China. Trump exhibits all the traits of opportunism and hype befitting a self-promoting television personality.

The world must beware the cult of Trump

And that’s the problem: who knows what he’ll do next?

The chances are that Sino-US relations will enter a tough, even dangerous, period. It is unlikely that anyone in his administration will say, as president Barack Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton did, that the US-China relationship was the most important bilateral relationship in the contemporary world, and that the two – one an established great power, the other a rising great power – had to find a way to get along without serious conflict.

Remembering Nixon, a Trump White House can only be bad for China-US ties

They may not have been consistent in their words and fell far short in deeds, but words count, and at least for a while, in the early Obama years, transpacific relations appeared to be promising (remember Sunnylands?) and serious minds devoted themselves to seeking ways forward. Even when the relationship worsened, the rhetoric never took on the tone it already has with Trump and his closest advisers.

George W. Bush appears to be a Wilsonian multilateralist in comparison to Trump

During his campaign, Trump declared he would “make America great again” and though it is unclear what that actually means, he has presented himself as an unabashed great-power nationalist, uninterested – even hostile – to the idea of a multipolar, globalised world. He expresses hostility towards the idea of trying to craft a cooperative international order, as all his predecessors had tried to do to varying degrees since the end of the cold war. George W. Bush appears to be a Wilsonian multilateralist in comparison to Trump.

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