...
By John Feng
China Editor
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
China won’t be so quick to celebrate the stunning blue wave that washed over President Donald Trump this week.
American voters may have withdrawn the Republican mandate by giving Democrats the keys to Congress, but Trump can still direct his executive powers abroad, even as the opposition prepares to restrain him at home.
After a bruising midterm result for the U.S. president, a wounded Trump may seem like easy pickings for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who will soon send negotiators to restart trade talks designed to neutralize America’s long-term tariff threat.
Read More on Analysis
Xi had an understanding with Trump and knew what made him tick. But the political setback may make Trump much harder to predict.
Why Xi Likes Predictable
Xi spent considerable resources on his rapprochement with Trump, including a state media campaign about Chinese resilience that stopped hostile economic acts by the United States and resulted in two glitzy state visits this year.
A promise to meet Trump at the APEC summit in southern China later this month, and again when Miami hosts the G20 meeting in December, has helped Xi build certainty into China’s relations with its top geopolitical rival.
Beijing may even go as far as to give Trump a foreign policy win at APEC by agreeing to a three-way meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in host city Shenzhen. Whether Xi makes any concrete commitments there is another question.
Related Story
Putin’s Two-Year Countdown Clock Starts Now
“Stability” has been the watchword in China for years, but it has extra weight this year after a campaign of purges swept up dozens of senior figures in elite Chinese politics and the military. Xi’s purges are about corruption in the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re also about loyalty—to him.
A recent gathering of the CCP’s Central Committee had the lowest attendance in over half a century, hinting at the scale of disciplinary action taken ahead of the party’s 21st national congress in 12 months’ time, when Xi is widely expected to win an uncontested fourth 5-year term.
“Xi’s main political goal now is to secure another term at the 21st Party Congress. That requires not only a firm grip on power but also a case that his continued rule is legitimate and natural,” wrote Christopher Nye, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation think tank.
Xi used the latest gathering of party cadres “to resolve the problems of legitimacy created by the purge,” Nye wrote this week.
A fourth term could extend Xi’s rule over China to 20 years.
...
So, 2027 will be a delicate year for Xi. He’ll be wary of a Trump unleashed, who, despite being weakened domestically, could channel his energy into foreign policy matters, namely negotiations with China to extend or rip up the Busan truce that kept tariffs at a minimum in exchange for Chinese agricultural purchases and other key commitments.
“Beijing could conclude the election results mean Trump needs an economic agreement more than China does…. In that sense, Beijing could turn Trump’s political setback into a bargaining miscalculation that unsettles the very stability Xi is trying to preserve,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
“If Beijing expects last night’s result to humble Trump, it is probably mistaken. He may have less room politically at home, but that could produce even bolder executive action abroad, including new pressure on Chinese companies, tighter economic-security measures and faster reshoring.
"Beijing should be careful about mistaking Trump’s political weakness for restraint in his China policy."
Remembering Trump 1.0
Trump’s first presidency also began with personal diplomacy with China’s Xi before flattery gave way to full-blown systemic confrontation.
Trump hosted Xi at Mar-a-Lago in spring 2017 and Xi returned the favor in fall with a lavish state visit for Trump in Beijing. The two leaders appeared to agree on $250 billion in commercial deals, which later never materialized.
The trade war followed in 2018, along with the first stage of the tech war that targeted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei the following year. The Phase One trade deal in early 2020 eased tensions but didn’t stop them from boiling over once more during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beijing was so concerned by the downturn in relations and the mixed signals out of the White House that it feared an “October surprise,” a military strike to rally support before Trump’s presidential race with Democrat Joe Biden.
Related Story
China Just Exposed America’s ‘Carrier Gap’ in the Pacific Again
Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called his Chinese counterpart without Trump’s knowledge to assure him that the U.S. government was planning no such action—and to preempt any miscalculation by Beijing.
Trump’s last experience as a lame duck president didn’t lead to a hot war, but it locked in a new Cold War with China, one of economic decoupling and export controls. And on the last full day of the first Trump administration, his then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, accused Xi’s government of genocide against Muslims in far-western China.
On the day Biden took office as the new U.S. president, China sanctioned former senior Trump officials in retaliation for the wild final weeks. The message to the new administration, and indeed the expectation, was that Trump’s hard-line China policies should be walked back. That didn’t happen and the rivalry was institutionalized.
Trump has no reason to hold back if Xi doesn’t play ball. And even with Trump neutered, the Democrats may not play nice.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines