Is Trump Going to China?

Just as Richard Nixon went to China in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, so too has Donald Trump suggested that he would like to make the trip.

Supreme China hawk Trump is effectively doing what I had thought he would do. He is laying the groundwork for a detente with China. He wants to do business with the big, bad evil Chinese empire.

Henry Kissinger used to say that China has not been an expansionist power, at least not for the past millennium. China wants to do business with the world. Currently, it is doing bang-up business with the global south. David Goldman has often remarked on this point, but it is worth emphasizing.

One notes that Trump is a negotiator and a deal maker. This tells us, if you needed the nudge, that he does not function like a despot or a dictator. Surely, he did not fill his cabinet with people of exemplary brilliance because he thought he could push them around.

So, Trump invited President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration. President Xi declined, but he did send his vice president. Then Trump had a constructive telephone conversation with Xi and suggested that he would happily go to China to meet with the Chinese leader.

So, we can say that Trump wants to engage with China. So says Michael Pillsbury, a man who is vastly better informed about this matters than I am. He suggests that Trump is using a carrot and stick approach, one that is designed to extract concessions from China. It reminds him of Ronald Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union.

Consider this:

China expert and Hudson Institute analyst Michael Pillsbury said Friday on Fox News that President-elect Donald Trump’s comprehensive strategy to engage China could prompt major concessions from the country.

During an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” Pillsbury said Trump’s approach reminds him of a diplomatic style reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s era.

“The president-elect Trump is revealing his China strategy for the whole next four years. And it’s brilliant. It’s taken part of it out of “The Art Of The Deal,” part of it’s out of President Trump’s admiration for Ronald Reagan and Reagan’s negotiating style,” 

Pillsbury said. “We put a lot of pressure on the adversary, even intimidate him, but always leave a way out and have respect and finally get agreements so that we saw Reagan.”

Drawing parallels to Reagan’s tactics, Pillsbury said the balance of pressure and respect in negotiations is strategic.

“We know he went from the evil empire and the ash bin of history to saying that it was a long time ago. Now we had a new era and eventually get the collapse of the Soviet Communist Party,” 

Pillsbury said, referring to Reagan’s previous approach.

Pillsbury added that China’s actions signal a respect toward Trump’s administration and could potentially lead to significant concessions from China. He said that this potential de-escalation could lead to breakthroughs in areas where China has traditionally resisted American interests.

“I think President Trump is revealing today how he’s gonna manage things. And, frankly, what we can look for now is this very dangerous encirclement every day of Chinese Communist jet fighters and ships around Taiwan. Sometimes 20, sometimes 30 bombers and ships. If that’s reduced in the near term, that will be a gesture of respect toward President Trump,” Pillsbury said. “I think we’ll be on the right track to get a lot more concessions from China in all the other areas where they’ve been working against us for so long.”’

How much the situation parallels the one that Reagan was facing with the Soviet Union, I will leave to others. I believe that here Pillsbury is stretching the analogy too far. Dealing with Gorbachev was not the same as dealing with Deng Xiaoping or Xi Jinping.

I would simply point out that if we believe that we are going to extract concessions, we are barking up the wrong tree. I suspect that China is not about to make any concessions that it would not want to make, in exchange for concessions on America’s part. 

If you are involved in a negotiation and your counterpart believes that you are forcing him to make concessions, the basis for the deal will be weak. No one feels bound to a deal that he was forced to make. Concessions should be made freely. They should not be extracted.

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