Opinion

US-China relations set for more of the same under Donald Trump’s new security adviser

Robert O’Brien is not a well-known name in foreign policy circles and when it comes to Beijing, his role is likely to be marginal, Ankit Panda writes

John Bolton may have gone but there are still plenty of China hawks whispering in the president’s ear

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Donald Trump may have appointed a new national security adviser but it is unlikely to have much effect on US-China relations. Photo: AP

Ankit Panda is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, a Senior Editor at The Diplomat, an online magazine on Asia-Pacific affairs, and a Contributing Editor at War on the Rocks.

Published: 7:30pm, 21 Sep 2019Updated: 10:37pm, 21 Sep 2019

John Bolton is out as US President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser. The remarkable turnover in that position is unprecedented, with Trump now the first leader ever to see four different people in the role during a first term.

Bolton came to the Trump administration as an experienced bureaucratic operator with strongly held views. While the latter didn’t particularly distinguish him within the administration, it was the former that made him particularly effective at manoeuvring within an administration comprised of many executive branch novices.

In the lead-up to Bolton’s departure, the signs of a fissure between him and the president had become clear, with the adviser getting ahead of himself on Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and even Afghanistan. Trump had taken note of his hawkish views, joking in July apparently that Bolton’s solution to even non-military problems was to “nuke them all”.