The Subtle Show of Force Behind Trump's Softer China Tones
President Donald Trump's business-first agenda may be driving a softer U.S. approach to Beijing, but his administration's China hawks are hiding in plain sight.
The pomp and ceremony that greeted Trump's visit to Beijing this month was a year in the making, a celebration of an unlikely U.S. pivot that began when both nations slashed tit-for-tat tariffs last May.
His first administration feuded with China over the trade deficit and later about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. It left relations in a state of such acrimony that few believed a public mending of fences ever was in the cards.
But in Beijing last week, Trump played up his long friendship with and respect for "great leader" Xi Jinping, in gushing remarks that China's president later said served to deepen mutual trust between the two men.
By Trump's side in the gigantic meeting hall off Tiananmen Square were some of the most vocal China critics in his Cabinet: Marco Rubio, his twice-sanctioned secretary of state; defense chief Pete Hegseth, who is rallying allies in Asia; and White House adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hawk.
All toed the line as the U.S. president, flanked by a massive delegation of company executives, made overtures to Xi in a bid to advance cooperation in exchange for more business in China.
Yet politics is about theater as well as power, and the presence of the politicians and the business leaders in the room also was one of strength-a reminder to Xi about the chaos he could unleash on the world's most consequential international relationship if Beijing doesn't come to the table, according to a senior adviser in the first Trump administration.
“The whole purpose of the visit to China was to show, to tell China that the United States is still number one in the world, that you cannot really replace the United States easily,” said Miles Yu, who was China policy adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Trump had made the seeming detente possible last year with a series of targeted concessions designed to mollify Xi's concerns over U.S. policy toward Taiwan and Chinese access to powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Both actions drew criticism from his supporters.
China's leader reciprocated by agreeing to an in-person meeting in South Korea in October and by committing to agricultural purchases long sought by the U.S. government.
After the summit in China, Xi appears to have agreed to a U.S. state visit in late September-his first since 2015. More high praise by Trump may help Beijing frame the trip as desirable and as another victory for its own approach to major power relations.
The calculating Chinese leader is giving Trump 2.0 the benefit of the doubt, but the circling China hawks mean he's unlikely to be lulled into a false sense of security.
Whatever the optics and the occasional deals, which will continue, the U.S. and China are in a “new Cold War,” a far preferable situation to a hot war, said Yu, who was a pivotal figure in reshaping U.S. relations with China.
“That’s basically what deterrence is all about. Peace through strength,” Yu said, pointing to the Trump catchphrase. “The keyword is peace. If peace breaks out, then you have strength to basically defeat your enemy.”
At home in America, the pressure is unrelenting-federal charges brought this month against an elected official in California showed part of the yearslong effort across three U.S. administrations to address unwanted Chinese political influence in the United States. The Justice Department has charged Eileen Wang, the former mayor of the city of Arcadia, with acting as an illegal agent of China.
In another sign of deep tensions despite the friendly words: In New York this week, a person was convicted of the same charge when a court found U.S. citizen Harry Lu guilty of operating an unofficial Chinese “police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
And throughout the U.S. heartland, states continue to pass laws to curb China’s long-term influence efforts across society in areas as diverse as science and technology extraction, strategic business activities and “transnational repression” targeting overseas regime critics.
What’s next? Despite the optics of the visit, the push for business and the apparent cooling of tensions, probably nothing much of real substance, Yu said.
“People don’t understand Trump’s approach,” he said. “I’m going to invite President Xi to come to visit in September. That basically is one way to tell Xi Jinping: ‘Listen, you got something to look forward to. So, between now and September, you’d better not make trouble. You’d better behave.”
There are other interpretations of Trump’s softer tones, however.
“If Trump planned to subtly threaten Xi by bringing his hawks and the deep bench of business people from some of the most powerful companies in the world, the tactic may have failed,” wrote John Yasuda, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Xi appeared to be in command and “gave off an image of a wise king dealing with a supplicant rather than two equals meeting as peers,” Yasuda said in a review of the summit for the university’s School of Advanced International Studies.
“The entire summit seemed to signal that if the United States is willing to return to a more transactional basis for its dealings with China, Beijing is content to let tensions ease. Indeed, the one thing Xi needs is a less confrontational America while he tends to serious challenges at home. Whether Washington fully grasps the asymmetry of the arrangement remains the open question,” he said.
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