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Ruairidh J. Brown

Of the many dramatic and absurd occurrences that marked the 2024 US election campaign, one of the most confusing was Donald Trump’s praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping – his supposed arch-geopolitical rival in the new cold war.
At an event in July 2023, Trump described Xi as “smart, brilliant, everything perfect” and said that there was “nobody in Hollywood like this guy”. In July last year, he said Xi wrote him a “beautiful note” after hearing of the attempt on his life.
“He’s a brilliant guy whether you like it or not,” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan in October. “He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” When Rogan said that didn’t mean Xi wasn’t evil, Trump replied, “We have evil people in our country.”
Xi is not the only leader of a rival of the US who Trump has praised. In 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “savvy” and a “genius”. While US President Joe Biden has called Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 an “unadulterated evil”, Trump has held back moral judgment and instead described Hamas’ ally Hezbollah as “smart”.
Indeed, Trump’s remarks stand in stark contrast to how US ideological rivals have been framed over the last century. The Soviet Union was called an “evil empire”. Iraq, Iran and North Korea were termed an “axis of evil”.
Trump’s reframing of geopolitical rivals from “evil” to “smart’ is part of his attempt to boost his own image. As pro-Nazi German theorist Carl Schmitt argued, to have credibility as a leader you must frame yourself as the antithesis of a threat posed to the community. With this insight, Putin’s and Xi’s purported brilliance and toughness are central to constructing Trump’s claim to being the perfect person for the US presidency.


In a world dominated by such figures, you certainly do not want a “sleepy Joe” at the helm in Washington and the lack of respect it supposedly inspires, emboldening men like Putin. You need an equally tough genius leader with a shrewd business mind. You need the man who could make even the brilliant and tough Xi pay US$28 billion to US farmers. You want Trump.
Nevertheless, this refusal to condemn the supposed enemies of democracy and instead openly praise autocracy could be seen as marking a deep and dramatic shift in US ideology. It signals the abandonment of American exceptionalism.
Under American exceptionalism, the values of liberal capitalist democracy are not only US values but universal ones and Washington has a manifest obligation to spread them across the globe. It holds that today’s US will be the world’s tomorrow and that inside everyone is an aspiring American.
Under this logic, the only power that prevents this universalisation is authoritarian leaders who stem the tide of democratisation and oppress their people. Thus, American foreign policy must support democracy and fight tyranny.

When you believe your enemy is evil, it becomes a moral duty to confront them. As philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain argued in support of US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, a war against the enemies of democracy is not just morally justifiable but imperative. For George W. Bush, indifference against the “axis of evil” was not an option. Refusing to confront the Soviet Union, for Ronald Reagan, was to refuse to side with good against evil.
Under the Biden administration, China became increasingly framed in this manner. Biden called Xi a dictator. China was called a “decisive” enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Nancy Pelosi when she was speaker of the US House of Representatives framed the Communist Party of China’s actions towards Taiwan as oppressive and menacing. She implied that the US must promote democracy not only in Ukraine and Taiwan but seemingly also in mainland China.
Confrontation with Beijing has become a moral cause necessary to protect democracy. Indeed, echoing Elshtain, it was framed by Pelosi as an imperative.
In such a climate, confrontation becomes expected while compromise or cooperation is frowned upon and seen as weakness. When you frame your rival as an evil enemy, any negotiation appears to be appeasement, triggering inevitable comparisons to former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s doomed Munich Agreement.


This is the situation facing Britain’s Labour Party government as it seeks trade deals with China whose authoritarianism it has morally condemned. British finance minister Rachel Reeves is unsurprisingly being accused of compromising on principles and her visit to China compared to “dealing with Nazi Germany”.
Trump, however, does not have this ideological baggage and will not have the same moral pressures to confront Xi. Making a deal with Xi will not be regarded as weakness or appeasement but as strength and proof of Trump’s ability to bargain with the toughest and most brilliant men on the planet.
Trump’s refusal to defend democratic values while praising autocracy will fuel the argument that he is an enemy of democracy. Threats and tariffs suggest negotiations with China will be tough. However, Trump is free of all the moral pressures and obligations to confront Xi on ideology.
In fact, Trump has all the incentive to cooperate with Beijing – to prove his acclaimed bargaining skills – and none of the moral pressure to confront the Communist Party. The Trump administration could very well steer the US away from a collision with China and arrive at some form of a deal. The new cold war could thaw before the ideological frosts ever truly set in.


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Diplomacy

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Opinion

World Opinion

News

World

Asia

China

Russia & Central Asia

Unbounded by traditional American exceptionalism, Trump could reframe deal-making with adversaries as a strength rather than a weakness


Unbounded by traditional American exceptionalism, Trump could reframe deal-making with adversaries as a strength rather than a weakness.


War and conflict

Defence

US-China relations

US-China trade war

Ukraine war

Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s China policy

United States

US Politics

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Could Trump finally call off the cold war with China?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Unbounded by traditional American exceptionalism, Trump could reframe deal-making with adversaries as a strength rather than a weakness

Unbounded by traditional American exceptionalism, Trump could reframe deal-making with adversaries as a strength rather than a weakness