Trump’s love fest with Xi

S P SETH

Was there really a grand strategy behind Trump’s 12 days Asia tour? Doesn’t look like there was one and none seemed to unfold as Trump moved from one country to another that was on his itinerary. North Korea appears to hog much of Trump’s attention since he has come to power. He can’t believe that despite all his threats to annihilate the ‘Little Rocket Man’, his regime and his country, Kim Jung-un still seems unbowed. The US has sent three aircraft carrier groups towards North Korean waters for naval exercises, which Kim would regard as an existential threat. And Trump told Kim in a direct message that, “The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.”  Against this backdrop, he reportedly told Kim come to the table to “make a deal.”

But the question is: what sort of a deal? Short of renouncing nuclear weapons, there is no deal. Trump said, “We will offer a path to a much better future. It begins with an end of the aggression of your regime, a stop to the development of your ballistic missiles and complete, verifiable and total denuclearization.” There is no indication that Pyongyang is inclined to come to the table for such a deal. As President Vladimir Putin has reportedly said that they (North Korea) would rather eat grass than abandon their nuclear weapons.

However, Trump believes that China can deliver the goods here if it were to cut off all economic ties with North Korea, with no money for their nuclear weapons program and for almost anything else. Which will mean two things. First, the Kim Jung-un regime will collapse creating chaos and a flood of refugees streaming into China. Second, a state of non-governance will create, over time, prospects of unification with South Korea, thus creating conditions for US military presence near China’s border by virtue of Seoul’s security alliance with Washington.

Beijing is not prepared to go that far, though it has lately tightened its sanctions against North under the UN Security Council resolutions. Which has encouraged Trump that a combination of flattery and in the larger context of US-China relations, Beijing might be prepared to go the extra mile to tell Kim that he has run out of options and his nuclear threat, though catastrophic if it were to materialize, will also be self destructive.

During his China visit, Trump described his official meeting with Xi as “excellent… discussing North Korea—and I do believe there is a solution to that—as you [Xi] do”, but it was left ambiguous what the solution might be. Trump, though, thanked China for cutting all banking ties with the rogue regime.

In a larger context, Trump is offering China a shared role with the US to manage world affairs. Until Trump became President, this was something the US was not prepared to confer on China. China was at best a regional leader and even there its role was not unfettered. The US was insisting on freedom of navigation through South China Sea. And now Donald Trump says his “great chemistry” with Xi would lead two men to solving “world problems of great danger.”  And for added emphasis, Trump said, “ I believe we can solve almost of them [problems] and probably all of them.”

As for China’ currency manipulation and its burgeoning surpluses with the US, he generously absolved China of any blame, saying that they were doing what any country would do, which is to maximize its advantage, made possible by the incompetence of the past US administrations. Talking of the “shocking” China trade imbalance, he said, “It is too bad that past administrations have allowed it to get so far out of kilter. But we will make it fair and it will be tremendous for both of us.” Apparently, as a start, about $250 billion worth of trade memorandum were signed with Chinese companies, which do not translate into actual contracts.

At the same time, Trump has virtually gone quiet on the issue of South China Sea islands, which China has claimed as its own and built military structures on them to defend its sovereignty, even though this sovereignty is contested by some regional countries. But most are now making accommodation with China with its growing economic, military and political power, as they see the United States’ power waning. China couldn’t have hoped for a better President in Trump from the viewpoint of maximizing their regional and global role.

Even though Trump has talked up his “great chemistry” with Xi Jinping, nothing substantial has moved on any of the issues that have plagued US-China relationship, be it the question of South China Sea and/or massive trade imbalance in China’s favour.

And in the larger global context, as Antony J. Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration, has written in the New York Times: “ … if the Trump-led retreat into nationalism, protectionism, unilateralism and xenophobia continues, China’s model could carry the day.”

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.