State media voices concern about the
appointment of hawkish Peter Navarro to key trade post
By Tom Phillips
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Peter Navarro has called
China ‘the planet’s most efficient assassin’.
Photograph: Courtesy of
Peter Navarro
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Donald Trump’s decision to hand a key spot in
his administration to a scholar known for his “apocalyptic” attacks on China is
further proof the American billionaire is spoiling for a fight with Beijing, a
Chinese newspaper has claimed.
Peter Navarro, a prominent China hawk who has
called Beijing “the planet’s most efficient assassin” and a “totally
totalitarian” state, was unveiled as chief of the White House’s newly created
national trade council on Wednesday.
China’s official reaction was muted but
editorials in the country’s Communist party-controlled press on Friday
underlined the extent to which Navarro’s rise has ruffled feathers in the
Chinese capital.
“His appointment is another sign of the
confrontational approach the incoming Trump administration seems intent on
taking in relations with China,” the China Daily, an English-language
mouthpiece, wrote in an editorial. “[This is] no laughing matter.”
The state-run newspaper said that before
Trump’s shock election it was possible to laugh off the “apocalyptic language”
used against China by Navarro, the author of books called Death by China and
The Coming China Wars.
“Now, however, there is real cause for
concern,” it added.
The Global Times, a nationalistic state-run
tabloid also famed for its use of apocalyptic language, claimed Trump’s pick
had made conflict between the world’s top two economies more likely.
“This is by no means a positive signal,” the
newspaper argued urging Beijing to face up to the reality that Trump would take
a “hard-line attitude toward China” by introducing “reckless” measures
targeting Chinese companies.
“[Beijing] must discard any illusions and
make full preparations for any offensive move by the Trump government,” the
Global Times added, warning: “The US can no longer push China around today.”
Navarro, a 67-year-old professor from the
University of California, Irvine, was part of Trump’s team of advisers during
his campaign, during which the Republican candidate accused Beijing of “raping”
the US economy.
The China Daily described him as the
“mastermind” behind Trump’s repeated campaign trail attacks on Beijing.
Navarro has blamed China’s admittance into
the World Trade Organisation in 2001 for decimating the US economy and
destroying millions of jobs and has urged American consumers to boycott Chinese
goods to avoid bankrolling what he describes as Beijing’s increasing
militarism.
Orville Schell, the head of the centre on
US-China relations at New York’s Asia Society, said Navarro’s appointment was a
“risky bargain”.
“The positive side is that it’s a real signal
that things are out of balance – which I think everybody agrees they are - in
terms of trade and investment [between the US and China].”
“The bad side of it is that China reacts
often in a very neuralgic way to insults or things that they might take as an
insult. And I can imagine they might view Navarro as something of a provocation.”
Schell said Navarro’s appointment and a
succession of controversial interventions from Trump on issues including Taiwan
and the South China Sea would have left Beijing off-balance. “But of course
when they get off-balance sometimes they get more pugnacious,” he said.
Navarro’s appointment will fuel fears that
Trump could spark a trade war with China by following through on his vow to
label it a currency manipulator on his first day in office and slapping tariffs
on Chinese imports.
Cheng Dawei, a former trade adviser to
Beijing, told the Wall Street Journal she believed commerce ministry officials
were currently “quite busy” devising ways of hitting back against any such
measures.
“China is now preparing some weapons,” said
Cheng, an economics professor from Beijing’s Renmin University.
Tu Xinquan, a professor at the University of
International Business and Economics in Beijing, told the China Daily US
companies would pay “a much heavier cost” than Chinese ones for such a
conflict.
On the eve of Navarro’s appointment China’s
foreign minister, Wang Yi, hinted at growing Chinese alarm over Trump’s
presidency.
The US-China relationship now faced “new
complexities and uncertain factors”, Wang told the People’s Daily, the
Communist party’s official mouthpiece.