‘XI BESTING TRUMP IN US-CHINA STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY’

‘Xi Jinping has shown a capacity to absorb short term reverses willingly and take a longer term view in his choice of options’. The Chinese leader ‘has met each US move with a countermove,’ say analysts.

Donald J. Trump has the distinction of being the first US President to openly acknowledge that China and the US are locked in a global battle for supremacy in the 21st century. However, growing personal unpredictability and an intensification of the pacifist sentiment that kept Trump out of participation in the Vietnam War during his youth are causing him to act in a manner that may lead to a US defeat by China in the multi-arena competition of both superpowers for the global top slot. This is a warning given on condition of anonymity by analysts within the US governance system working whole time on how the US can prevail in this conflict. They say that retention into the 21st century of the Number One status among world economies that has been held by the US for almost a century is crucial to ensuring that the Washington-controlled global architecture dominating geopolitics since 1945 continues into the present century. Whether

it be KFC or Mcdonalds; Hollywood movies or pop and jazz music; or the goods and services produced by US companies, the top rank enjoyed by Washington has been instrumental in US entities fending off competition that may otherwise have prevailed over their US counterparts. “The soft power of the US is substantially based on the perceptions created by its Number One status. The day China takes over that slot, US soft power will begin melting away like ice cream”, a senior analyst dealing with Chinarelated issues since 1995 warned. Among the first casualties will be the US dollar, which will thereafter be on a fast track towards losing its status as the global reserve currency, a colleague of his said, adding that “trust in the stability of the dollar is based on the preponderant power of the US, and it is global confidence in the US as Country No. 1 that keeps the dollar strong and stable”. This situation, in their view, may get impacted by President Trump going the way in kinetic (i.e. military) matters of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who had an allergy to the use of the armed forces under any circumstances. It was General Secretary (of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) Gorbachev who refused to attack Mujahideen bases in Pakistan, thereby handing over a victory in Afghanistan to the latter. In much the same way, President Trump recently has in substance “ordered the armed forces to retreat in a pell-mell fashion in Syria and Afghanistan”, an analyst focused on the military pointed out. In Afghanistan, “Trump has had no hesitation in following

Bill Clinton, who handed over Kabul to the Taliban in 1996”. A colleague added that “given recent events, it would require a suspension of belief for Asian allies such as South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia to believe that the Commander-in-chief (President Trump) would place thousands of US lives at risk by defending such countries kinetically against any possible attack by their foes. They are going to be on their own in such a situation, because of the Trump Doctrine of Zero Military Involvement”, he concluded.

This would be to the benefit of China, which has been explicit about its desire to drive the US armed forces out of Asia and to prevent any country in the continent from becoming (or remaining) a US ally.

CHINA, RUSSIA INSEPARABLE ALLIES

An expert pointed out that “China and Russia under Xi and Putin are closer than Moscow and Beijing ever were in the past, even during the Korean War”. The coming together of two countries that together comprise much of the population and land area of Eurasia has resulted in “a massive upgrade of weapons systems and offensive capabilities by the China-russia alliance”. They claim that while in theatres such as in Syria, Russia appears to be acting independently of China, “the reality is that Beijing gives under the radar but decisive support to each such Russian initiative, so as to ensure that the Russian moves succeed over US countermoves”. A “Net Assessment” expert involved since the 1990s in analysis