Will dream shared by Xi Jinping and Donald Trump become a nightmare?
Can America and China achieve national rejuvenation simultaneously, or is a clash inevitable?
The Chinese and US presidents both dream of national rejuvenation, and that could be a nightmare scenario for Sino-US relations.
US President Donald Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, won election last year with his populist pledge to “Make America Great Again”. China’s Xi Jinping (習近平), a Communist Party “princeling”, has amassed great power four years into his first term as party chief with his nationalistic appeal for realisation of a “Chinese dream”.
As both men consolidate their power bases in very different political systems – Trump is sensitive about his mandate amid deep division among voters and Xi is campaigning to consolidate his “core” status within the party leadership – analysts said the potential for conflict between the world’s sole superpower and its fastest-rising rival is greater. That’s not because of Xi and Trump’s political and ideological differences, but because of commonalities in their respective agendas.
“They share much in common,” said Cornell University sociologist Professor Victor Nee. “They are both nationalists with ambitions to restore their country’s greatness.”
Trump’s wants to ensure the continuation of American economic supremacy and dominant superpower status in the face of a growing challenge from China. Xi wants to restore China to the world-leading status it last held centuries ago.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, said their slogans showed the two leaders were coming from very different starting points, with Trump seeking to preserve the US pole position after years of seeing its lead narrow, and Xi wanting China to make it to the front of the pack.
