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Dewey Sim

“A very good friend of mine” was how US President Donald Trump described Chinese President Xi Jinping during his election campaign last year.
Then, in the days after taking office in January, Trump said he “always liked” Xi, and that they “always had a very good relationship”.
This month, Trump again hailed his “very good personal relationship” with Xi, saying that he knew the Chinese leader “probably better than just about anybody in various parts of the world”.
While confirming that he had held talks with Xi, Trump said in an interview on Fox News that he “happen to like [Xi] a lot … I love talking to him”.
As Trump has played up his personal ties with Xi over the past several months, questions have been raised about how effective his brand of diplomacy will be in steering Washington’s relationship with Beijing.
Trump’s personal approach might have yielded some success in the past with leaders such as North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, but it might not work with Xi, according to diplomatic observers.


Zhiqun Zhu, an international relations professor at Bucknell University in the United States, said Trump and Xi enjoyed a “cordial” relationship during the first half of Trump’s previous presidential term. And even as bilateral ties soured following the trade war launched in 2018, Trump never spoke negatively about Xi.
He added that while Joe Biden was president, he had also bragged about his relationship with Xi, but that did not translate into friendly policy.
“One hopes that Trump will be different. If he truly thinks he has a good personal relationship with Xi, hopefully he can use it to steer the US-China relationship towards a more cooperative course and not let hawks like Rubio dictate this relationship,” he said, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Despite his praise for Xi since taking office, Trump has pushed ahead with slapping an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods citing issues over fentanyl controls. His team has also made strong statements on China, including Rubio who warned that China was the “biggest threat” facing the US.
Zhu said that if Trump claimed he liked Xi but continued to “punish” China with his tariff-based policy, his personal diplomacy “would not go very far”.
“Personal diplomacy definitely helps but substance matters more,” he said.
Fei-Ling Wang, an international affairs professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said that what should be more closely watched were “real actions” by Trump and Rubio, who remains on China’s sanctions list.
Rubio was ­sanctioned twice by Beijing in 2020 – first in retaliation for US measures against senior Chinese officials over their alleged ­treatment of the Uygur ethnic minority group, and later after mainland and Hong Kong officials were sanctioned by Washington over their actions or policies ­following the Hong Kong protests in 2019.
“Many have speculated that Trump identifies with and even envies the so-called strongman leaders such as Xi and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Others have suggested that Trump may be simply using personal flattery as a bargaining technique,” Wang said.
But he added that Xi – as a seasoned leader who has dealt with Trump before – “is probably not that easily affected by flattering words from Trump, who is not known as a careful public speaker”.
David Arase, resident ­professor of international politics with the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre for Chinese and American Studies at Nanjing University, said: “Trump is a businessman and politician who seeks personal relationships in search of new opportunities for success.
“He knows Xi makes all the important decisions for China and he knows from experience that you need a good personal relationship based on mutual respect before anything positive can happen.
“[Trump’s personal diplomacy] will work to the extent that Trump fulfils Xi’s need for face and validation as a great leader before Xi can enter any meaningful negotiation,” he said.
Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, said Trump’s praise of his relationship with Xi may be an attempt to “flatter China or it might just be his instinctive admiration for strong leaders”, adding that it was a reflection of Trump’s character.
Trump’s foreign policy would be marked by a “strong sense of individualism”, he said, adding that the American leader was likely to take charge of Washington’s approach towards China in person.
But Wang added that both Xi and Trump appeared to value leader-to-leader diplomacy, and Trump’s diplomatic style could lead to a summit between the two men, which he said could help provide a clearer direction for US-China ties.
Last week, Trump said he expected Xi to visit Washington, though he did not provide a timeline for a potential visit.
In Trump’s first term, his brand of personal diplomacy was also on display towards North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump had previously described their relationship as “very good” and has called Kim a “smart guy”.
That connection translated into two summits between Trump and Kim that drew global attention but yielded no significant results, according to analysts.
Zhu, from Bucknell University, said Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim helped lower tensions on the Korean peninsula for a while, but they have since risen again and Washington’s relations with Pyongyang remain cold and difficult.
“This is just another example of the limits of personal diplomacy. What matters more is willingness to compromise, not always imposing your will on others,” he said. “After all, actions speak louder than words.”
Arase suggested that Trump’s openness to personal relations with Kim helped improve regional stability compared with the tenuous state it was in when Trump first took office.
But compared with Kim, Xi is more confident and self-assured, he added, noting that the Chinese leader is also more institutionally and politically constrained, raising the prospects for a Trump-Xi summit that could dramatically reverse the strained state of US-China relations.
Wang from Renmin University said Trump’s personal diplomacy with China would likely be “significantly less effective” compared with North Korea.
In mapping out his China strategy, Trump must also consider the coming midterm elections in the US. China, Wang suggested, could adopt strategies to buy time, meaning Trump “may have to think more carefully about his moves towards China and be less reckless”.
Wang, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said that China was viewed by both Republicans and Democrats as the leading adversary facing the US, and was not seen as a “small problem” like North Korea.
“In such cases, I am afraid that personal diplomacy matters little, if any at all,” he said.


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As the US leader plays up personal ties with the Chinese president, ‘substance matters more’ in guiding Washington’s relationship with Beijing, observers say


As the US leader plays up personal ties with the Chinese president, ‘substance matters more’ in guiding Washington’s relationship with Beijing, observers say.


Nanjing University