China-US trust issues threaten hope of successful diplomatic backchannel: Joerg Wuttke

Finding an effective backchannel between Beijing and Washington is difficult because of the challenges of finding an intermediary trusted by both sides, according to a seasoned China observer and former top business leader in China. “I think there is no backchannel at this stage outside normal diplomatic places … I don’t see at this stage the attempt from both sides,” Joerg Wuttke, former president emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “And it would be hard to find a person that is trusted on both sides to explain Donald Trump to Xi Jinping, and to explain Xi Jinping to Donald Trump,” said Wuttke, who spent more than three decades in China before moving to Washington last year. “It has to be someone who is knowledgeable in both cases, senior enough to have the ear of both presidents. And I don’t see this yet.” Wuttke, who is now a partner at consulting agency DGA Group in Washington, said the individual who could serve as a backchannel had to be someone under the media radar. He said the last person qualified for the task was Elon Musk, whom he described as “loud” and more “on the front page”. The billionaire and close Trump adviser has business ties to China and close relationships with senior Chinese officials, leading to early suggestions he might be a bridge between Beijing and Washington. Musk was among the first businesspeople from the US to visit China after the pandemic and invested heavily in the country during its economic downturn. However, he has also expressed concern about China’s industrial capacity surpassing that of the US. Trump has repeatedly cited countering China as a main driver for several foreign policy moves since he returned to the White House in January. However, observers also note that the Trump administration’s China policy is still taking shape. Wuttke said backchannel communication had to involve “someone who has huge credibility in Beijing and finds the ear of the president in the United States, and to find the ear of the president of the United States is very complicated because he’s changing his mind constantly”. “How can Beijing trust someone coming over and he says maybe ‘A’, and then all of a sudden they learn from the White House policies ‘B’? Backchannel requires trust and confidentiality, and that’s difficult to find.” With the two countries trading tariffs, Trump on Monday said Xi would visit Washington in the “not too distant future” following recent reports that the leaders were considering a summit as early as April. Earlier this month, the Post cited multiple sources in reporting that Trump could visit China as early as next month. Trump has said he wants to travel to China in his first 100 days in office, and a visit next month would fall within that time frame. But Wuttke said it was “very unlikely” that Trump would visit China soon, noting that the US president’s references to numbers were often “rather more flexible” and that Trump instead appeared to be floating an idea. “He’s trying to indicate he’s throwing a test balloon. He has a test balloon up there: ‘Am I welcome?’ … That was his messaging. In reality to implement any of that is going to be very difficult,” he said. “He cannot come to China [to] really get nothing. He’s a deal maker, so the deal has to be prepared. But there seems to be no deal making in preparation.” Since Trump’s re-entry to the world stage, there are new opportunities and challenges for engagement between China and the EU. He has intensified tariffs on Chinese imports, while the EU and US have also rekindled an old trade war. The EU has retaliated strongly against Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium with sweeping duties of its own, sparking fears of a broader trade war that could hit the global economy. The uncertainties for both Europe and China mean they could have “more wiggle room to cooperate”, according to Wuttke. But he also noted that their engagement needed further concrete efforts from China to address concerns. “China’s attempt to engage with Europe was very tiny baby steps. And there has to be more symbolism in it and more engagement from the Chinese side in real terms,” he said. In Germany, chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz was interested in engaging with China but there was unease over “lopsided trade relationships, the declining German exports to China”, Wuttke said. “I guess his policy will be to ask China to open up further, as well as luring Chinese investment to create jobs in Europe, and particularly in Germany. “His first and foremost attempt in politics will be to beef up the German economy, to unite Europe stronger than it was before. So he will be more busy in his backyard, and then reaching out to China.” There is further uncertainty for Beijing as Washington under Trump pivots on Ukraine, pursuing a ceasefire while also looking to restore relations with Russia. However, Wuttke said warming US-Russia ties would not undermine Beijing’s relations with Moscow. “It’s completely nonsense to believe that the US gets closer to Russia in order to pull Russia out of the Chinese orbit. It’s not going to happen.” “China has been a very reliable partner for Russia and Russia needs China … I think the relation between Russia and China remains strong and it wouldn’t make sense to attempt to divide these two or make a gap.”

China-US trust issues threaten hope of successful diplomatic backchannel: Joerg Wuttke

Former president of EU Chamber of Commerce in China says it is ‘completely nonsense’ to believe the US can pull Russia from Beijing’s orbit