[The United States, Medeiros argues, was the anchor power in Asia because of the rules, institutions and values it represents. “Trump fundamentally calls that into question when he’s praising the Chinese political system – and not getting much in exchange.”]
By
Emily Rauhala and Simon Denyer
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From
left, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan, U.S.
President Trump
and U.S. first lady Melania Trump are shown the way by
officials at the Great
Hall of the People in Beijing. (Andy Wong/AP)
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BEIJING
— When President Trump
landed in Beijing on Wednesday, he was whisked through quiet streets to the
Forbidden City, where he got a history lesson from President Xi Jinping and
caught an opera at the Pavilion of Pleasant Sounds.
It was an apt opener. After twice tweeting
out his gratitude, Trump on Thursday met Xi at the tightly guarded Great Hall
of the People, where, surrounded by corporate CEOs, he oversaw the signing of
$250 billion in trade deals and continued to praise his authoritarian host.
The two-day trip was orchestrated to project
the image of remote and absolute power that Xi enjoys and Trump admires. There
were no protests, no questions from the press, no ordinary people, nothing but
pleasantries and soothing tones.
Trump brought up North Korea, but said Xi
could solve it. He raised the trade deficit, but said it was not China’s fault.
He said the Chinese people are very proud of Xi.
While both sides were pleased to see a
high-stakes visit end without incident, there are questions, now, about what
was gained and what, perhaps, was lost.
“Talk about embracing the Leninist political
system,” said Evan Medeiros, who heads the Eurasia Group’s coverage of the
Asia-Pacific and was the National Security Council’s Asia director in the Obama
administration. “In Trump’s effort to ingratiate himself with Xi, is he
inadvertently ceding American primacy to China?”
The United States, Medeiros argues, was the
anchor power in Asia because of the rules, institutions and values it
represents. “Trump fundamentally calls that into question when he’s praising
the Chinese political system – and not getting much in exchange.”
There is worry, too, that after all the sweet
talk, that the United States is expecting a lot from Beijing but that Xi, in
the ascendant, may not budge. That could lead to disappointment in the United
States, and friction down the road in the relationship.
“My
expectation is that not much will come from China,” said Max Baucus, who was,
until the beginning of 2017, the U.S. ambassador to China. “And that is going
to put Trump in a bit of a box.”
William Zarit, chairman of the American
Chamber of Commerce in China, applauded the trade deals, but also wondered what
comes next, whether the Trump administration would be able to use the momentum
to tackle tougher issues in the U.S.-China economic relationship, such as
market access for U.S. firms in China.
“The question remains: What is being doing
about these structural issues?” he asked. “We hope to see proactive measures by
the Chinese to address the imbalances in the relationship, as pressure is
building in the U.S. to take reactive reciprocal actions.”
As a candidate, Trump often lashed out at
Beijing, blaming the Chinese economy for a host of American ills.
But when Trump hosted Xi at Mar-a-Lago, his
tone changed.
In an apparent effort to secure Xi’s help on
North Korea, Trump has curtailed his criticism and shifted his focus to areas
where he thinks he can win.
The focus on signing deals in front of the
cameras, as opposed to, say, hammering out solutions to longstanding economic
issues, makes some sense, experts said.
Trump lacks diplomatic experience and has
been slow to make appointments to several key Asia roles
“We haven't yet had the bandwidth in the U.S.
administration or the time to have detailed conversations with the Chinese side
on market access and other systemic issues,” said Tim Stratford, managing
partner of Covington and Burling’s Beijing office and a former assistant U.S.
trade representative.
"Unless you’ve had time to discuss these
very difficult and complicated issues in some detail, you can’t expect the two
presidents to announce anything that is concrete and detailed and meaningful,”
he said. “I fully expect these very tough discussions to begin in the next few
months.”
Chen Dingding, a professor at Guangzhou's
Jinan University, said the visit was a starting point — a first offer on the
way to the next deal.
“What’s the alternative? No trade deals?
Often, you can’t get your best deal, you can get your second best, get your
third and move from there.”
Both the Chinese and U.S. sides, of course,
are casting Thursday’s agreements as first rate. At a briefing after the
meeting, Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said the deals were “a miracle.”
China’s Communist Party-controlled press
seems pleased, for now, with Trump’s visit, for what he said, and what he
didn’t say.
The Global Times, a newspaper known for its
nationalist rhetoric, on Thursday ran an editorial headlined, “What do most
Chinese people like about Trump?”
The piece noted Trump’s “frank"
character and “pragmatic" approach to U.S.-China ties, mentioning
specifically that he does not bring up human rights.
One of the main reasons China likes Trump is
that Trump likes Xi, the paper argued. "He respects our head of state and
has repeatedly praised President Xi Jinping in public.”
The paper noted in particular that Trump had
been quick to call Xi after the recent 19th Party Congress. “This is respect
for the Chinese system.”
The question is what happens if the friendly
rhetoric changes — if Trump, for whatever reason, stops being so positive about
Xi. With the mood in the United States turning increasingly skeptical about
China and the benefits of the bilateral relationship, that has to be a real
possibility, experts said.
“President Xi and the Chinese leadership will
think that they have done an awful lot to give President Trump face: they’ve
done a ‘state visit plus,’ they’ve rolled the red carpet out with all the pomp
and ceremony, they did all these business deals and they come away thinking the
relationship is on a solid footing,” said Paul Haenle,, director of the
Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.
“But President Trump may go home to a
domestic political environment where people are disappointed he hasn’t achieved
more progress on trade and economics and North Korea and you may see a shift
towards a much harder line.”
Amber Ziye Wang and Yang Liu contributed from
Beijing.
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