Argentina braces for ChinaUS showdown
Trade tariffs, recent war of words set the stage for a TrumpXi faceoff
BUENOSAIRES: This weekend’s G20 summit in Buenos Aires matters less for the main proceedings than for US President Donald Trump’s expected encounter with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump has lately seemed intent on escalating their quarrel over trade, and Xi has shown no sign of backing down.
With neither side willing to compromise, the dispute runs the risk of causing a complete breakdown in US-China relations, and poses the single biggest threat to global peace and stability.
Understand, this isn’t just about Trump. In the background stands a new consensus on China. Opinions have shifted with bewildering speed. As little as a year ago, trade-policy experts and long-time China-watchers mocked the president’s obsession with the trade deficit and opposed his threatened tariffs.
Now, without moderating their contempt for Trump, many advocates of open markets seem to agree with the administration’s hardliners. They see China as a grand strategic threat — one that needs to be confronted, much as the Soviet Union was confronted during the Cold War.
The new consensus is wrong. To be sure, China has given the hawks plenty of material.
In recent weeks, it has blocked consensus and bullied delegates at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit; harassed a US Navy vessel on the open seas; arrested the Chinese president of Interpol and students agitating for workers’ rights; and contin- ued to shrink the space for open debate in Hong Kong.
This is not to mention the longer-term ways in which China appears to be threatening US interests and the liberal international order. Its Belt and Road infrastructure push has added to a dangerous pile-up of developing-country debt.
Here’s the main thing. Acting on the theory that China is a hostile revisionist power would be counterproductive.
The alternative isn’t to be meek. Unassailable military power is essential.
China is entitled to strive for economic growth. But if it hopes to remain part of the liberal trading order, it ought to accept the rules.
Trump presents a parody of self-confidence. What America and its friends need is less strutting and more conviction. The values that underpinned US global leadership for decades aren’t out of date. The meeting in Buenos Aires is a chance to mend this world-shaping relationship. Both leaders ought to seize it.