The Trump White House needs capable China hands to guide its US foreign policy
Chi Wang says if the US leader’s unexpected friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping is to result in a warmer bilateral relationship, Trump needs a more in-depth understanding of China than his team can currently provide
This week marked Donald Trump’s first visit to China as US president, but his ties to China go further back than his first friendly meeting with Xi Jinping this year at Mar-a-Lago. As a businessman, Trump has long been involved with China. He owns property and runs manufacturing businesses in China, as do his daughter and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Reportedly, Kushner was even instrumental in arranging the meeting between Trump and Xi that sparked a new relationship between the two presidents. Despite Trump’s campaign-trail rhetoric of taking a hardline stance against China, he and Xi have formed a surprising friendship: one that may lead to friendly policymaking on both sides.
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Today, there is no US president, sitting or otherwise, who is as strong on China as Jimmy Carter. As the leader responsible for establishing formal Sino-US diplomatic relations in 1979, and for his dedication to improving Washington’s relationship with Beijing, he is among the most respected by Chinese leaders. No one like him remains.
Former US presidents (from left) Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama gather in College Station in Texas on October 21 to raise funds for disaster relief in the wake of recent hurricanes in America and the Caribbean. Today there is no US president, sitting or otherwise, who is as strong on China as Carter. Photo: EPA-EFE / Handout from One America Appeal
Barack Obama had a particularly strained relationship with China. Despite his famous plan for a “pivot to Asia”, he left office having made numerous state visits to China, with little progress on any of his most important agendas, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement. In fact, he even failed to convince Beijing that the pivot to Asia was anything more than a thinly veiled China containment strategy.
Americans just don’t have the knowledge or the background in China any more
Obama had little exposure to China before his presidency, and he became quickly disillusioned with a Beijing that was not eager to agree to his proposals. His early interactions with China, which included a failure to secure a deal at the 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, quickly propagated a more cynical view of Beijing than his initially hopeful idealism, and he adjusted his strategy accordingly. Obama did not warm to China again.
