Donald Trump and China’s Year of the Hawk
A brash new U.S. president is on a collision course with a Chinese leader bent on consolidating power.
Donald Trump and China’s Year of the Hawk
A brash new U.S. president is on a collision course with a Chinese leader bent on consolidating power.
Politico
Donald Trump talked tough on China on the presidential campaign trail. He threatened to retaliate against an adversary that’s “raping our country” in trade. He vowed to slap 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports, and to declare Beijing “a currency manipulator on Day One” in the White House. Yet even after Trump’s startling victory, many Chinese were unruffled. Why? Because they saw Trump as an isolationist who would allow them to work their will in the Asia-Pacific region.
As recently as October, many Chinese also believed he’d take a pragmatic approach toward Beijing. “Unlike traditional idealistic politicians who tend to place ideological values such as democracy and human rights as [their] priority, Trump has more realistic interests,” analyst Li Haidong of the Foreign Affairs University said at the time. “As a businessman, he understands the importance of making profit through cooperation.”
“[Chinese] expectations were higher than they ought to have been,” says Doug Paal, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, who headed the American Institute in Taiwan from 2002-2006. He recalled a Chinese acquaintance declaring the U.S. president-elect a pragmatist on China because Trump was a CEO, steeped in the art of the deal. “He thought Beijing officials could simply tell Trump, ‘We’ll do Asia and you do the rest’,” Paal said.
But the weeks since the election have given Chinese leaders reason to rethink that optimism. Trump has infuriated Beijing by suggesting Washington’s longstanding acknowledgement of a “one China principle” might be up for negotation in trade talks. He tweeted that China had “stolen” a U.S. underwater drone, which Beijing’s navy had seized, then returned after a few days. He named Peter Navarro, one of America’s most vocal China hawks, to join his White House team. His secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, vowed to deny China access to islands in the South China Sea—a move some in Beijing would see as an act of war. The president-elect also has blamed Chinese leaders for doing “nothing” to stop their bellicose neighbor, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, from developing nukes—an accusation that will not wear well in Beijing. And, of course, he shared a phone call with the leader of Taiwan, breaking with 37 years of diplomatic protocol.
Beijing, in short, appears to have completely misread Trump’s intentions—and many there know it now. “China needs to face up to the reality,” concluded a recent editorial in the Global Times, a hawkish state-backed tabloid, “that the Trump team maintains a hard-line attitude.” Says Paul Haenle, founding director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, who served in the White House for five years under Bush and Obama: “It’s increasingly apparent to China that the Trump administration’s vision for the Asia-Pacific will likely mean more strategic pressure, not less.”
It all comes at the worst possible time for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is looking ahead to a politically tricky Party Congress in late 2017, when key policies will be debated and a large number of top decision-making posts will turn over. The last thing he wants is to be distracted by a White House that intends to challenge nearly every aspect of the Sino-U.S. relationship—or to appear weak in its face.
Already, leading Chinese hawks are spewing nationalistic rhetoric, putting pressure on Xi and raising the odds of a dangerous clash with an unpredictable American president China barely understands. In December, at a Beijing seminar organized by the Global Times, Dai Xu—a People’s Liberation Army senior colonel and commentator known for his hawkish views— warned: “If the U.S. chooses military confrontations against China in this region, the U.S. side will lose the battle for sure.” Added professor Jin Canrong of Renmin University, “China is a dragon. America is an eagle. Britain is a lion. When the dragon wakes up, the others are all snacks.”
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Trump’s phone call with the leader of Taiwan could be written off as a rookie mistake. Far more sobering, to Beijing, was the Dec. 21 appointment of Navarro – a 67-year-old business professor and author of books such as Death by China: How America Lost its Manufacturing Base – to head a new National Trade Council in the White House. The Harvard-trained economist’s book became a 2012 Netflix documentary, featuring imagery like a knife (representing China) stabbing a bleeding United States. Navarro believes China and America are already locked in combat over trade. He sees China as the world’s biggest gulag and “disease incubator,” a repressive, rapacious, polluting police state and dystopia reeking with “the raw stench of a gut-wrenching, sweat-stained fear.” Navarro warns in the film: “Help defend America and protect your family: don’t buy made in China.” He recently predicted that “China will probably soon implode,” but beforehand it’ll likely seek to distract domestic attention with crises abroad, “probably through conflicts in the South China Sea or Taiwan.”
Navarro’s trade council may ultimately have little power, but among Chinese analysts, he’s become something of an obsession. Most of Trump’s accusations against China “are influenced by Navarro,” observes Liu Haidong of China Foreign Affairs University, who anticipates Trump will make major trade policy shifts “to give China a head-on blow.”
Some Chinese analysts still hope Trump will listen to more China-friendly advisers, such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who’s sought deals with Chinese firms. If implemented skillfully, what one Beltway insider called “Washington workarounds” could allow Trump to appear to fulfill his hawkish campaign promises on China trade without sabotaging bilateral relations. Washington could levy selective tariffs on Chinese steel imports into the U.S., for example, without going all the way to 45 percent tariffs on all imports, a level most analysts consider unsustainable.
But the potential for hawkish policies under Trump is by no means limited to trade. In a Nov. 7 article in Foreign Policy, Navarro and co-author Alexander Grey faulted the “meekness” of Barack Obama’s Asian “pivot” or “rebalancing” towards Asia, dismissing it as “talking loudly but carrying a small stick.” While China militarized rapidly, Obama allowed the U.S. navy to shrink and the American military to suffer a “readiness crisis” due to defense sequestration, they argue, citing “the horror story of naval aviators taking spare aircraft parts from museums to keep their planes flying.” Gray and Navarro said Trump would beef up the U.S. naval presence in the Pacific, embrace U.S. allies like South Korea as “bedrocks of stability in the region,” and support Taiwan as a “beacon of democracy” – possibly even helping it develop submarines.
That kind of talk from such a close Trump adviser makes Chinese strategists jittery. They fear Trump’s China-bashing isn’t just rhetoric. While running for president, Ronald Reagan said Washington should restore “official relations” with Taiwan (after the U.S. de-recognized Taipei in favor of Beijing in December 1978), for example, and Bill Clinton excoriated “the butchers in Beijing.” In both cases, those stray comments were forgotten not long after the candidates became presidents. Trump, who blasted Chinese trade policies at rally after rally, could be another story. “Unlike Reagan or Clinton, who mainly criticized Beijing on issues such as human rights, Trump is coming into office on an explicitly anti-China ticket,” notes Arthur R. Kroeber, managing director of GaveKal-Dragonomics and author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know. “That’s different – and it could get scary.”
Chinese officials worry, too, about Trump’s outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Beijing has benefited and prospered during the years of escalating tension between Moscow and Washington. Chinese officials dismiss suggestions that their relations with Moscow are anything but robust and comradely. But some Russians find the Chinese treat them with complacency and arrogance. And there is no question that a sudden Moscow-Washington rapprochement could throw into disarray Beijing’s long-term foreign-policy calculations. In the eyes of his domestic constituency, Xi wants to appear confident and proactive on the global stage, not the odd man out in a shape-shifting geopolitical love triangle. But Xi knows how quickly such three-way relations can change. After all, it was U.S. President Richard Nixon’s surprise China visit in 1972 that opened the door to Sino-U.S. rapprochement, isolating the Soviet Union.
Trump also frightens Chinese officials because he seems so cavalier about Beijing’s “core interests.” Traditionally, those included Taiwan, Tibet and human rights issues symbolized by the 1989 protest movement in Tiananmen Square – sometimes dubbed “the three T’s.” More recently, China added its claims in the South China Sea to the list.
Of these, Taiwan is the most sacrosanct of all China’s red lines. Beijing authorities see it as a maverick province that ultimately must reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary. Chinese relief that Trump barely mentioned Taiwan during his campaign turned into shock and outrage when, shortly after he won the election, Trump took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-wen – a step his predecessors deemed too provocative. Then came Trumps comments about Taiwan as a “bargaining chip,” which Beijing saw as hugely threatening to its sovereignty. “Taiwan [can] suck all of the oxygen out of the relationship if it becomes an issue,” observes Carnegie-Tsinghua’s Haenle. “This could be a very negative development for U.S.-China relations.”
Trump’s moves—and the response from Chinese hawks—are putting enormous pressure on Xi and his team at a particularly delicate political moment. Long before Trump’s election upset, Xi began preparing for the 19th Communist Party Congress, scheduled for late 2017 (the exact date remains secret). The Congress will almost certainly grant Xi a second five-year term as party head. But that’s not what worries Xi. At the Congress, he’s expected to try to alter the age and term limits observed by senior communist officials, and perhaps timeworn succession procedures as well. Such changes won’t be universally popular in a bureaucracy already rattled by Xi’s draconian anti-corruption campaign.
That means over the next months, Xi needs to immerse himself in consensus-building and political horse-trading back home, without overseas distractions. “Beijing has placed an enormous premium on stability. Intense political jockeying is already underway in China, and the economy faces increasingly serious and difficult challenges,” says Haenle of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center. “The last thing Xi Jinping wants is big problems in the U.S.-China relationship or on the Taiwan issue that require him to have to divert considerable time and attention.”
It also means Xi—to stay popular at home—simply cannot afford to appear weak next to Trump. On the trade front, Beijing is ready in case the new administration follows through on Trump’s threats. While Capitol Hill will not likely accept 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports, even without congressional approval Trump has discretion to levy up to 15 percent tariffs for months, enough time for Beijing to feel the pinch and respond in kind. Chinese officials would likely restrict U.S. agricultural imports, and turn to Airbus instead of Boeing when shopping for new aircraft. (The economies of China and America are so intertwined that both sides will suffer; in September, China became the world’s first trillion-dollar aviation market, with plans to buy 6,810 aircraft over the next 20 years, and Boeing expects to provide a lot of them.) American firms operating in China could also experience deeper regulatory scrutiny, more inspections and other bureaucratic hassles that are legal but irritating nonetheless.
More unpredictable tit-for-tat reactions will result if Trump trespasses on core Chinese interests. The chance of an irreversible Sino-U.S. blow-up over Taiwan diminished briefly in early January when Trump and his transition team kept their distance as Tsai travelled to Central America, with a “transit stopover” in Houston. But Beijing objected to the Taiwanese leader’s meeting with prominent Republicans such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Chinese media editorials warned Trump that China would exact “revenge” if he reneged on longstanding U.S. policy towards Taiwan. Already, Chinese hardliners are calling for PLA fighter jets to buzz Taipei to compel Tsai to support a “one China” principle. If she does not, Wang Hongguang, former deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, told a conference in early December that “military conflicts could occur between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan by 2020. It is quite possible that the mainland will take the island in one stroke.”
Meanwhile, mainland China has already embarked on a diplomatic offensive to try to woo away from Taiwan some smaller countries – mostly in Central America and Africa – that still have diplomatic ties with Taipei instead of Beijing. Taiwan and the mainland had observed an eight-year “diplomatic truce” in this contest. But now Xi has decided the gloves are off. The latest to defect by de-recognizing Taipei is the flyspeck African nation of Sao Tome and Principe (population 200,000), which established diplomatic ties with Beijing on Dec. 26. Nicaragua and the Vatican could be next, if Beijing’s campaign succeeds.
A risk of miscalculation exists on the high seas, where diplomats and military personnel from both China and the United States are vying for influence, testing each other and at times colliding in testosterone contests. Especially while Trump and Xi are still strangers, each with hawks back home lobbying in favor of more aggressive action, close encounters between aircraft or marine vessels could risk “the two giants sleepwalking into a war,” as Zhou Bo of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Sciences put it in an op-ed in the state-run China Daily.
This wouldn’t be the first time Beijing tested the resolve of a newly minted U.S. president. In 2001, ten weeks after George W. Bush was inaugurated, a Chinese navy vessel nearly rammed the U.S. oceanographic vessel USNS Bowditch in the Yellow Sea. One week later, a Chinese jet fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane not far from China’s southern Hainan Island. China’s aircraft crashed, killing the pilot. The EP-3 was forced to land on Hainan. Eleven days of negotiations later, China released the 24-member American crew. The plane was eventually returned, in pieces.
Beijing tested Obama a couple months after his inauguration, too. In March 2009, the American USNS Impeccable was towing a low-frequency sonar system to monitor submarine activity in the South China Sea, where several countries have conflicting claims – China among them. Near Hainan, the U.S. ship was shadowed by five PLA vessels; Chinese sailors waved national flags and ordered the Americans to leave. A maritime melee erupted. The U.S. side opened up with water cannon. Chinese sailors stripped down to their underwear. Ships from both sides veered within 25 yards of each other. Finally, Impeccable signaled its intent to depart. But Chinese vessels didn’t allow it to leave until the crew aboard one of them tried to use a grappling hook to snag the American ship’s towed sonar array.
What’s different today, as Trump prepares to take office, is that Beijing’s technological expertise, its military capabilities and the expectations of its people have all grown steadily over the years. A decade ago, Chinese had no idea who was spying on whom hundreds of miles out to sea. Today, even some Chinese teenagers can rattle off the names of American spy planes that are closely observing the PLA navy’s sole aircraft carrier Liaoning on its maneuvers, or a Chinese diesel submarine’s port call in Borneo. Ordinary Chinese know the United States is using naval drones to gathering data on everything from water salinity to the activities of Beijing’s nuclear submarine fleet. Many aren’t pleased. And their nationalistic voices, demanding muscular action in the face of minor incursions or diplomatic gaffes, might prod Xi to respond more assertively than his consensus-minded predecessors would have.
So, what will Xi do? Expect more friction that stops short of outright conflict, along the lines of the Chinese navy’s recent construction of landing strips and other military installations on uninhabited atolls of the disputed South China Sea, or its Dec. 15 surveillance drone snatch, which the Pentagon called “unlawful.” Insisting its actions are purely defensive in nature, China’s Defense Ministry has warned, “If others are flexing their military muscles on your doorstep, are you not even supposed to have a slingshot at hand, just in case?”
Beijing’s scramble to prevent the United States and other countries from trespassing on its core interests will reach further afield, and assume different forms. When China deems it too risky to directly confront America, expect it to try to charm, bully and cajole smaller states, offering financial aid along the way. Chinese leaders clearly aim to to replicate their dramatic 2016 diplomatic turnaround with the Philippines, where U.S. criticism has helped drive the autocratic President Rodrigo Duterte into the welcoming arms of Beijing. And then there’s the possiblity of a U.S.-China trade war, which is looking more and more likely. If Trump continues on his current trajectory, relations between Beijing and Washington are about to get a whole lot uglier.
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