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So many interpretations! First, the explanations of what to expect from this Summit between President Xi and President Trump were everywhere. And now the same for the presumed outcome and results. So, everywhere and nowhere. Particularly notable, and annoying in the midst of all this noise, is the recent reporting from folks like Tom Llamas who is anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News”. You would think that there hasn’t been a US Presidential visit to China – ever! It is hard to take and the results, to the extent we can draw conclusions, well, far diminished from all this hype.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of respect for colleagues examining US and China foreign policy actions, US-China interactions and drawing out policy advances and setbacks. But the noise surrounding this trip by Trump to China and Trump-Xi foreign policy interactions and presumed results just raised the noise level without really being able to point the way forward for these great power leaders.
So in and amongst all the interpretations, I appreciated those colleagues that maintained some kind of restraint particularly in light of this President’s inability or unwillingness to undertake the serious hard work and planning pre-summit to enable a substantial result.
I appreciated the more restrained and cautious folk that reported on the gathering. One instance, not surprisingly, was the insights from David Sanger in his piece in NYTimes, “Trump Was Flattering, Xi Was Resolute. The Difference Spoke Volume”:
“Mr. Xi, unsurprisingly, spent little time Thursday on flattery. Once the 21-gun salute and precision-marching by units of the People’s Liberation Army were finished, the disciplined Chinese leader plunged right away into setting boundaries for the two country’s relations.”
“The red line was Taiwan, he said, making it abundantly clear that Mr. Trump’s effort at rapprochement could crash on takeoff if he interferes with China’s long-term effort to take control of the self-governing island.”
“The moment seemed to capture the new equilibrium between the two adversaries. Mr. Xi arrived highly scripted, leaving no doubt that for all of China’s problems — deflation, depopulation, the bursting of the real estate bubble — the moment when China acts as a peer superpower had arrived.”
In a follow up piece in the NYTimes, Sanger with a Beijing colleague Anton Troianovski wrote in “Trump’s ‘Learning Curve’ on China Ends With Conciliation at Summit”:
“As Air Force One took off from the Chinese capital on Friday, it remained unclear what deals, if any, President Trump had clinched with Mr. Xi. But the two-day summit in Beijing underscored how far he has shifted the foundations of American policy toward China in the wake of his humbling retreat from last year’s trade war. He has thrown aside the adversarial approach of his first years in office, the Biden administration and the beginning of his own second term.”
“What’s more, he has largely waved aside the warnings outlined in the Pentagon’s annual, unclassified accounting of China’s capabilities and intentions, which lays out a plan to push the United States out of the Western Pacific, engulf Taiwan, claim more territory in the South China Sea and escalate cyberattacks on the United States. He acknowledges that these threats are real. He has just reversed his view of how to deal with them.”
“And Mr. Trump insisted that Beijing and Washington were on the same page on Iran, even as the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday reiterated its position that his war “should not have happened in the first place.””
“Taken together, the picture of a deferential American president and a confident Chinese leader reflected Mr. Xi’s success, despite his country’s bleak economic picture, in derailing the hawkish approach to China that Mr. Trump adopted at the start of his second term.”
The two reporters and analysts put this conclusion on Trump’s reactions:
“John Delury, a historian of East Asia, said that even though the summit had produced few tangible outcomes in terms of economic deals or political agreements, it had the potential to affect the geopolitical mood, both in China and the United States. Mr. Trump’s friendly statements toward Mr. Xi and the Chinese people were being amplified in China’s state-controlled media, sending the message that “we’re getting along better with the Americans,” said Mr. Delury.”
“And in the United States, Mr. Trump was telling voters who previously heard him describe China as a sinister, destructive force that it was a country America should do business with. The Washington narrative about “decoupling” — the idea that the United States should unwind its economic ties to China — seemed part of a bygone era.”
““You don’t pack Air Force One with your biggest business leaders when you’re decoupling,” said Mr. Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society. “Trump is sending that message to his people — to some extent the whole country — that we can get along with China even though we’re still going to compete.””
And then:
“The summit produced little clarity about the policy details of the new relationship that Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi were shaping. Da Wei, the director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said the United States did not appear to have “put enough energy” into the visit.”
And then concluding this way:
“But analysts in both China and the United States said Mr. Trump’s attitude to Beijing was different now. For one thing, he has seen China’s ability to retaliate against the United States, as it did by throttling rare earth exports last year, forcing Mr. Trump to back down in his trade war.”
““Everyone has a learning curve,” said Sun Chenghao, a specialist in US-China relations at Tsinghua University. Now, he said, “Mr. Trump knows how to deal with China.””
Another constrained view came from Hannah Miao, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in Singapore, covering China’s economy and its ties with Asia and the world and Yoko Kubota. In a piece in WSJ she drew the following conclusion:
“The summit ended without any joint announcements on specific deals, or any broader communiqué covering trade or other matters, but both sides celebrated the visit as a reset in relations. China said the two sides agreed on a new vision of “strategic stability,” while Trump described the U.S.’s relationship with China as “a very strong one.””
“Trump touted “fantastic trade deals” struck at the summit, but so far, details have been scarce. The president said China agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes, as well as more American oil and agricultural products. China hasn’t yet announced any such purchases.”
“Xi told a delegation of American executives that China will open wider to foreign businesses. The White House said the two sides discussed expanding U.S. access to the Chinese market and Beijing’s investment in U.S. industries. Members of the Trump administration said in the run-up to the summit that the two sides would discuss the creation of a “board of trade” and a “board of investment.””
Underscoring the restraint and limit to this meeting – remember there may be as many as three more meetings before the end of the year – is the fact that before the Summit there was much talk of the creation of one or both of these boards but it appears that neither was agreed to yet.
It is evident that ‘Taiwan’ remains a serious issue dividing the two and with the potential for even greater tension or even conflict. It is evident that Xi made pointed reference to Taiwan as noted by John Haltiwanger and Rishi Iyengar in the FP – and indeed mentioned by most:
“Continued U.S. support for the island, which China claims, loomed large over the bilateral talks largely focused on trade, technology, and the Iran war. According to Beijing’s readout of the meeting, Xi told Trump that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” adding that the notion of Taiwanese independence and peace between Taiwan and China “are as irreconcilable as fire and water.” Xi urged “extra caution” from the United States in its handling of Taiwan.”
So while it remains unclear that Xi spoke those remarks to Trump they were nevertheless underscored in written statements by China.
Oren Cass, a conservative commentator, reflected yet an additional note of constraint in the face of Trump style and approach to China. In an opinion piece in the FT he wrote:
“The result is a US ill-prepared to make decisions that will shape geopolitics and the global economy for the foreseeable future. That is always dangerous, but even more so when the other side excels in long-term planning and co-ordinated action.”
“The worst thing Trump could do under these circumstances is attempt a major deal, which cannot possibly deliver strategic benefit to a country that lacks a strategy. The best plausible result is simply no deal, beyond efforts to smooth any decoupling that might proceed, giving the US time to come to its own terms with the irreconcilable differences of its great-power competitor.”
There may be more announcements in the days to come. It is certainly possible. But restraint by both sides seems to overlay the conclusion of this first of possibly several summits between these two leaders. On the positive side, it may helpfully provide time for Trump and his people to organize their ‘asks’.