Chinese media assail U.S. strike on Syria
Waited until Xi was out of U.S.
The New York Times
BEIJING — With President Xi Jinping safely out of the United States and no longer President Donald Trump’s guest, China’s state-run media on Saturday was free to denounce the missile strike on Syria, which the American president told Mr. Xi about while they were finishing dinner.
Xinhua, the state news agency, on Saturday called the strike the act of a weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles. In an analysis, Xinhua said Mr. Trump ordered the strike to distance himself from Syria’s backers in Moscow, to overcome accusations that he was “pro-Russia.”
That unflattering assessment reflected China’s official opposition to military interventions in the affairs of other countries. But it was also a criticism of Mr. Trump himself, who Mr. Xi had hoped was a man China could deal with.
Chinese officials had feared the leaders’ 24-hour encounter at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida might be marred by a campaign-style anti-China outburst from Mr. Trump. Instead, it was interrupted by the unexpected attack.
Some Chinese analysts viewed the strike’s timing as no coincidence. Mr. Trump wants China to do more to deter the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, its ally, and these analysts viewed the Syria attack as a reminder to Mr. Xi that the United States could also attack the North.
The missile strike on Syria overshadowed meetings that American and Chinese officials described as big-picture conversations on trade as well as North Korea, which stopped short of producing specific agreements.
Both sides agreed that the North Korean threat had reached a “very serious” stage, according to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson. He said the United States was prepared to take its “own course” if China did not do more to rein in the North.
But the official Chinese account of the talks in Xinhua did not mention North Korea — a burning issue for Mr. Trump, but less so for Mr. Xi. Analysts said the omission was probably intentional, a response to the attack on Syria.
Xinhua’s commentary on the Syria strike also made no reference to North Korea. But it mentioned American missile attacks on Libya in 1986 and Sudan in 1998, and scolded the United States for not achieving its “political goals” in those instances.
The state-run media offered sanitized accounts of the Mar-a-Lago talks, emphasizing the sweeping green lawns on which the leaders walked and the ornate room where the official discussions took place. Those articles omitted the surprise of the Syria attack, in keeping with the goal of presenting an uplifting account of the two leaders meeting as peers.
Mr. Tillerson said that when Mr. Trump notified Mr. Xi about the Syria strike toward the end of dinner, Mr. Xi expressed understanding, because it was punishment for a chemical attack that had killed children.
The Chinese president very rarely talks to the Chinese or foreign news media, making it almost impossible to determine his opinion about the attack or how he expressed it to Mr. Trump.
But Chinese analysts, whose advice is sometimes sought by the government on foreign policy questions, were scornful of the strike, which they viewed as a powerful country attacking a nation unable to fight back.