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It’s been said that this visit by Donald Trump to China for meetings with Xi Jinping could change the course of US-China competition and the balance of power in the Pacific and beyond.
This masthead’s international editor, Peter Hartcher, tells The Morning Edition podcast the US president has already made many concessions to his Chinese counterpart without extracting much in return.
“Just look at the technology question. The Biden administration had put restrictions on exporting the most high-quality silicon chips, semiconductors to China, the ones which the US companies are using to try to establish global advantage in artificial intelligence. Well, Trump lifted those bans and said, ‘Go ahead. You can sell them’, in one of the few areas where the US still had an edge. So he’s already conceded so much power to Xi Jinping, who knows what he will give, what he will take.”
Hartcher reminds us that the big trade deal previously struck between the two countries also didn’t yield the expected results. China bought only 51 per cent of the US goods it promised to buy and it didn’t stop the flow of fentanyl to the US – one of Trump’s biggest demands.
Now the US president, says Hartcher, risks making concessions also on Taiwan. Xi, for example, may seek a halt to US weapons sales to the island.
“Taiwan is 67 miles from China and 9000 miles from the US,” Trump repeated recently. This may indicate an early position, or it may not.
Hartcher says “even a slight hint from Donald Trump that he would be indifferent to China making some sort of move on Taiwan would change the balance of power, not just between the two of them, but in the world because it would encourage Xi Jinping and hasten, perhaps, plans that he has said that this is an inevitable task – the so-called reunification, the annexing of Taiwan … So that’s a pretty clear-cut intent.
“Now, if Trump gives him any hint that he will be indifferent to whatever Xi Jinping has in mind, it will affect the position of the US in the region. It will threaten the security of Japan, of Korea, South Korea. It will threaten the position of the Philippines, the Vietnamese.
“From the South China Sea all the way down to the Straits of Malacca and beyond into the Indian Ocean, it will directly affect Australian power and ability to navigate in the world, literally, to navigate where our submarines and our commercial vessels may or may not be allowed to go.”
Listen to the conversation by clicking the player below.
In today’s episode of The Morning Edition, hosted by Samantha Selinger-Morris, Hartcher on whether Trump may inadvertently lead the United States into unilateral concessions and unintentional appeasement, and what this might mean for the rest of us.
“What we’re seeing here is Donald Trump going in to do the same thing he’s done before, where he failed to get the concessions he sought, but hoping to succeed now. That’s either eternal optimism or the definition of insanity.”
Many have speculated that Trump will ask Xi for help with the Iran war, given the close Beijing-Tehran relationship, but Trump has already said he will not because America the war is going well and America doesn’t need any help.
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