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The White House has shifted its tone and rhetoric toward a rising China that challenges U.S. hegemony.
Donald Trump unexpectedly assumed the role of pragmatic peacemaker in a phone call with Xi Jinping. According to him, the two leaders discussed trade issues, fentanyl, the TikTok social network, and global politics — expressing a shared willingness to «make the world more peaceful and secure».
On his first day in office, Trump issued an order directing the Justice Department to suspend for 75 days the imposition of penalties on companies that provide access to TikTok, a platform of Chinese origin. This took into account the fact that TikTok, which built its success on short video clips, has about 170 million users in the United States.
At the same time, Trump agrees with those who claim that TikTok poses a threat to national security, since the Chinese authorities could allegedly obtain the personal data of its users. He supports the idea of selling this media resource to an American owner. However, the 75-day pause creates a window of opportunity to negotiate with the Chinese side — namely, ByteDance, the app’s creator, as well as official Beijing.
«We have a very strong leverage over China — tariffs — and they don’t want them», Trump said in a January 23 interview with Fox News. But he then added a phrase that the press perceived as a «dovish»: «And I would rather not use them (tariffs)».
So far, Trump has not (yet) backed up his tough rhetoric against China with action, nor has he repeated the mistakes of his predecessor. It was Joe Biden who stepped up military and diplomatic support for Taiwan, which Beijing considers a «renegade province». And then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island triggered the largest military exercises ever by China’s armed forces, designed to demonstrate Beijing’s resolve.
Also noteworthy is the official statement from Beijing following the phone call between the two leaders: President Xi «noted that it’s natural for two major countries with different national characteristics to have certain differences. The key is to respect core interests, address each other’s major concerns and find appropriate solutions».
A gentle warning followed: «The Taiwan issue concerns China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The American side should approach it with caution».
To what extent will the Trump administration actually heed this recommendation to exercise «caution»?
We can gain some insight from remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During his Senate confirmation hearing, he declared that Beijing’s threats were «the most powerful and dangerous in all of American history», adding that not even the confrontation with the USSR posed comparable dangers to the United States.
In plain language, Rubio told the senators, «Right now, the Chinese are a technological adversary, a competitor in industry, in economics, in geopolitics, in science — in everything. It’s an extraordinary challenge». He added that if nothing is done, much of American life in 10 years «will depend on whether the Chinese allow it or not».
Such sentiments prevail among experts. For example, Ionut Popescu, an assistant professor at Texas State University, wrote in The American Conservative shortly after Trump’s victory:
«Although conflicts in the Middle East or Russia’s war in Ukraine dominate the daily headlines, there should be no higher priority for America’s grand strategy in the coming years than containing China’s drive for regional hegemony and global superpower status».
Meanwhile, Jonathan Kirshner, a professor of political science and international studies at Boston College, wrote in Foreign Affairs (the journal of the influential Council on Foreign Relations) about the threat posed by China:
«The primary danger is not that China will rashly and foolishly embark on a doomed quest for regional hegemony by systematically invading its neighbors; the danger is that China could establish political dominance over East Asia».
The Boston professor, who does not clarify what he means by «political dominance», is worried because he predicts that the People’s Republic of China, without resorting to arms or aggression (the United States, from 1776 to 2022, went only 20 years without war!), could win over the patchwork of countries in East Asia — except, of course, those occupied by American troops and thus of limited sovereignty, namely Japan and South Korea.
Equally telling is the advice to Washington’s political and military leaders from James Holmes, a lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College. Writing in The National Interest, he argues that conflicts in Europe should be handled by the Europeans themselves, and that «America should play a secondary, supporting role».
According to Holmes, the United States should focus primarily on conflicts in Asia (i.e., confrontation with China) by channeling «political energy and military resources» to countries such as the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, as well as de facto allies such as Taiwan («de facto» because the United States officially adheres to the One China policy).
This is the prevailing view among political scientists. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government Accountability Office conducted an audit of land ownership and found that 40 million acres (16 million hectares) of rangeland, farmland, and forests in the United States are owned by foreign investors. Moreover, 28 of those 40 million acres are owned by Chinese investors. Not surprisingly, suspicions have arisen that the Chinese are buying land near military bases for spying and, in the event of war, sabotage.
In New York, two Chinese nationals were arrested and accused of setting up a secret branch of the PRC National Police in Chinatown, when they were merely helping their compatriots with paperwork. However, they were in contact with China’s Ministry of Public Security.
Two U.S. Navy sailors of Chinese descent were also detained for allegedly selling data on the specifications of the F-35 fighter jet to a buyer in Beijing. Nowadays, even every tourist from the Middle Kingdom tends to be viewed as a potential «undercover agent».
In short, anti-Chinese spy mania is rampant in the United States, approaching the intensity of the «Reds under the bed» hunt under the rabid Senator McCarthy.
But leaving aside the views of political scientists and everyday Sinophobia, there are indirect signs that President Trump is not yet ready to initiate open hostilities, even in the form of a trade war. It seems that he wants to put the essentially inevitable conflict with China on hold — for the time being — until he finishes the «Ukrainian case» and figures out what to do about Russia.