In the recent visit of President Trump to China, one thing is certain, that Xi Jinping and China in general welcomed President Trump and not the President of the United States. We point this out because for a large part of the American people, unfortunately the personality of Donald Trump is not identified with the office of President of the United States. More specifically:
Beijing welcomed President Trump, who did not represent the entire country called the United States. Because America is divided into two parts (Democrats and Republicans), and quite sharply at that.
A large part of the country, to put it bluntly, does not consider Trump its president – something that is inevitably reflected in foreign policy. Today, Sino-American relations are at a crossroads. Which path they will follow from now on is still difficult to say.
This is related to the fact that there is a specific approach of Trump to these relations and an approach, let’s say, of the US deep state.
Trump believes that in these relations they should be guided by the principles of the Westphalian system. That is, in the world there are large states that have their own national interests, which must be implemented in any case, even without taking into account the UN Charter and the UN Security Council. This is the approach of big capital, which Trump represents.
The approach of Trump and US Big Capital-“The Aces” in the USA-China relations
A characteristic confirmation of this is the composition of the presidential delegation that visited Beijing with President Trump, 15 businessmen, whose fortune is estimated at 12 trillion dollars. We are talking about Elon Musk (Tesla and SpaceX), Tim Cook (Apple), Kelly Ortberg (Boeing), Michael Miebach (Mastercard), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), representatives of the largest American international investment company “BlackRock” and others.
These “aces”, like Trump himself, rely on the creation of the so-called Chimerica or Chitland, two global state formations, between which a new bipolarity of the world, the G-2, should be created in the 21st century.
As China, in Trump’s view, is a scientific-economic power, while the US is a scientific-technological power.
And there should be relations of strategic partnership cooperation between them. By the way, Xi Jinping has expressed it as follows: “Your successes are our successes”. With such a formulation that satisfies both sides, Trump returned to the US.
To the question “On what principle will relations be built in practice? Because in all times the US treated its partners as vassals…”, he answers: “That was and that is how it is.
But China is no longer a vassal of America. The Opium Wars, which the united West launched on its territory and the genocide of the Japanese militarists were a great lesson for all times. China today is a scientific and economic power, which in many indicators has already surpassed the United States.
Not only in terms of GDP per capita, the rapid development of its navy, the armed forces as a whole, but also in artificial intelligence.
And the Americans would very much like to develop joint production in this area, relying on Chinese “brains” and financial assets. The dividing line, Taiwan, for now remains. But the potential benefit from joint projects outweighs.
The United States has for now suspended the shipment of a new batch of weapons to Taiwan worth $ 12 billion. However, it has not canceled it completely. And this is a carrot and stick policy.
For Trump, the economic and scientific-technological sector is of primary importance today, as in the USA the possession of scientific-technological achievements has always been dominant, such as, for example, the monopoly on the atomic bomb, which, however, lasted only four years.
Correspondingly, for the USSR, the monopoly on rocket and space technology, thanks to which the Soviets were the first to reach space.
Equally, if not more important today is artificial intelligence. The Chinese here are not only on the same level as America, but also ahead of the rest of the world. Americans realize that China has in some respects become “smarter” than them.
The PRC is creating technologies that the USA does not have and will not have in the foreseeable future. Here, America may face unpleasant surprises, which it can only avoid by developing close relations with China, attracting Chinese scientists and engineers…
Trump, for example, wanted up to 600,000 Chinese students to study at American universities. All this is the position of big capital, which would like to create a new bipolarity in the world in this way.
China is also interested in establishing equal, long-term economic relations.
The Main Threat and the Approach of the US Deep State to US-China Relations
For the US deep state (Democrats and part of the Republicans). China is the main threat. Therefore, America must build its relations with it as it built them with the USSR during the Cold War.
Let us remember how serious an issue for the USSR was once West Berlin. From there, the wave of disintegration of the USSR began. First through the German Democratic Republic, then through the Warsaw Pact countries, and history is known as to the collapse of the USSR. Today, for China, such a corresponding role (to the German Democratic Republic) is played by Taiwan.
The US uses Taiwan towards China as a kind of beacon of freedom and democracy, in contrast to the communist system of government.
Human rights issues are raised, the CCP and its president Xi Jinping are demonized. That is, socialism is a dead end path for the development of humanity and over time in China it will collapse like in the Soviet Union. Therefore, pressure must be exerted on China and its development must be restrained by all means.
These two approaches are clashing today in the United States. Of course, China knows all this very well and understands that the scales can tip to one side or the other at any time.
But today China has bet on Trump. In fact, the dominant role, in the opinion of the Liberal Globe, was played by Xi Jinping. The strategic initiative was in his hands. He represented all of China, while Trump acted largely to enhance his personal popularity, which is rapidly falling.
Trump was interested in showing that only he could be an acceptable president and conduct such negotiations. But the representatives of the “deep state” (Democrats and some Republicans) support a Cold War model.
That is, the priority should be to contain, threaten, provoke and destabilize the political situation in China. Thus, American policy found itself at a crossroads.
The prediction
It is not easy for anyone to say what will happen. Trump has very strong resistance within the US. The ghost of Tiananmen still haunts there. And there is a great temptation to present the whole of China as one big Tiananmen Square.
Moreover, these forces also have support. We mean the oligarchic class of China, which functions as a “fifth column”, since for a capitalist the main thing is to maximize profit, regardless of political priorities.
And the number of billionaires in China is the largest on the planet. The plan is based on them. However, from the statements made by Xi Jinping, China is ready not only for cooperation but also for confrontation. He subtly hinted to the US not to dictate terms.
These words are addressed to those who are ready to sell weapons to the islanders and say that Taiwan is an island of freedom and liberal democracy, and therefore a model for the whole of China. As we wrote, Trump also addressed Xi Jinping with the aim of putting pressure on Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine (“US: With threat of nuclear strike on Iran and abandonment of Taiwan, calls for isolation of Russia from China“).
Americans are accustomed to connecting such events with various anniversaries. For example, with the 250th anniversary of America.
On May 19-20, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid an official visit to China. Of course, it is important for us to understand more deeply what Xi Jinping agreed with Trump and with American billionaires.
In addition, it is quite possible that Russia will find its own place in the planned trade agreements. After all, it is often precisely business that today solves problems that politicians cannot solve.
And one more thing. We have previously overestimated the disagreements in US-China relations. In fact, they have much fewer disagreements than we think. Remember what Xi said: “let’s not fall into Thucydides’ trap.” This means not allowing ourselves to be drawn into a cold or hot war.
He urged Trump not to try to build relations on such principles. So today this is the basic US-China position: better trade than war. Democrats feared that Trump would “agree” with Taiwan for the sake of this cooperation.
But this did not happen, which may turn out to be a time bomb. Therefore, the main conclusion is this: Trump and Xi Jinping have for now built a relationship of trust. But how they will develop and whether they will withstand in the future, only time will tell.
