Recalibration
US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jin Ping will meet for the first time later this week. The venue will be Trump’s luxurious Mar-oLago resort in Florida, the same place where Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met the new American leader some weeks ago.
Trump may not fully grasp the full significance of this meeting between the leaders of the two largest economies in the world. Xi, for his part, takes to these meetings like a chess master. He patiently studies every possible move his counterpart might make and plans his counter.
This is a meeting between a sharp intellect and a boisterous moron. Xi reached his position as paramount leader by deftly negotiating the power blocs within the Chinese Communist Party. His words are always well composed and his policy statements always guarded. He did not become paramount leader by hosting a show on reality TV.
The path Trump took to become president we all know. He pandered to the least common denominator. He lied repeatedly and smeared his rivals. He made promises he can never deliver on. He played on fears and thrived on threats. There is no indication he exercises his literacy. His view of the world he derives from television.
Trump’s talent lies in his capacity to miss out on all the nuances. He thrives on oversimplification and relishes caricature. He communicates with his base using Twitter.
Days before meeting Xi, Trump said in an interview that either China joins the US in pressuring North Korea to scuttle its nuclear weapons program or the US will deal with the problem alone. The statement does not make sense. It contained no detailed strategy on how he intends to deal with North Korea by his lonesome.
Those who have taken to studying Trump’s style say the statement was made to put pressure on Xi ahead of the meeting. But Xi is smart enough to see there is nothing substantial in that statement, unless Trump goes ahead and nukes Pyongyang – which is simply unthinkable. Therefore, Xi is unlikely to be intimidated by Trump’s bluster.
Dealing with North Korea requires careful, and patient, diplomatic maneuvering. Nothing can be done without partnerships with China, South Korea and Japan.
In the real world, one cannot just go out and nuke a pesky little tin tyrant. There are consequences. They need to be thought through. Strategy is not Trump’s game.
Lately, Trump and Xi might seem to have exchanged places. While Trump lent himself to populist rhetoric, railing against free trade and environmentalists, Xi welcomed globalization and unveiled a comprehensive plan to restrain environmental destruction in his country.
Among Trump’s first acts was to dismantle the Trans-Pacific Partnership initiative to create the largest free trade alliance. He is obsessed with building a wall on the border with Mexico and dismantling the North American Free Trade Agreement if that is at all possible.
Xi, for his part, praised free trade during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. His government advanced the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and negotiated trade agreements with China’s major trading partners. Beijing is pushing a comprehensive trade plan called Belt and Road that will build the infrastructure to revive the old trade routes.
In a word, while Trump is forcing his country look inward, Xi is pushing his country to look outward.
Not everyone expects the meeting between the tempestuous Trump and the calculating Xi to be a happy one. Days before the meeting, there was certain nervousness palpable in Asian markets.
If the meeting turns confrontational, it will have to be pronounced a disaster. There will be little cooperation between the two largest economies in the world. If things turn from bad to worse, Trump will curtail trade with China and carry out all the stupid threats he mouthed during the campaign such as naming the Asian economic power a “currency manipulator.”
In his own mind, Trump imagines himself an Irresistible Force and might try to bamboozle Xi to commit to cutting his country’s immense trade surplus with the US. If he tries that approach, he will soon discover Xi to be an Immovable Object who might lecture the American leader on the finer points of market competition.
Trump all but dismantled Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy. Without that strategy, he has little to leverage against China’s rising influence in the region. This includes the South China Sea reefs that China built up into military bases. If Trump thinks he can reverse that rising influence by sheer blabbering, he might as well start talking to the Great Wall.
The wily Xi might come to the meeting bearing gifts. He might offer Trump a menu of initiatives their two countries might cooperate on. He might even offer Trump an indecent proposition: a plan for a comprehensive partnership between the world’s two most powerful economies. The Chinese leader is in the US, after all, to do business. Trump will find it hard to resist a promising business proposal.
Remember Xi heads a government that meticulously plans everything to the last detail. That is in sharp contrast to the chaos that is Trump’s new administration.
The meeting between Trump and Xi, however it goes, will result in a recalibration of the US-China relationship. This is a vital moment in this most important bilateral relationship. The US, with its decaying infrastructure and inward-looking leadership faces a more assertive China seeking to both extend and consolidate in wide network of influence.
All of Asia will be observing like tea leaves every twitch and every utterance in this meeting.