Donald Trump will be sworn in on Monday (US time) as the president of the United States again.
Quite a few countries, whether they are allies, partners or adversaries of the US, are crossing their fingers. With more significant trepidation, Denmark, Canada, and Panama face Trump’s covetous bid for their territories. Some international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and even some agencies under the United Nations, have expressed concerns about the possible withdrawal of the US. The US is more likely to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the international community’s hearty response to climate change, or some other bilateral and multilateral treaties. In any case, American nationalism, populism, unilateralism and isolationism are likely to quickly surge after Trump takes office. The “liberal international order” that the US has crafted and long led will collapse. When the US is no longer willing to assume the world’s leadership or the responsibilities and obligations of being a world leader, the world order and international relations could undergo drastic changes, and global disorder could become the norm and seriously endanger the world’s peace and development.
Countries around the world are scrambling to devise measures to cope with new relations with the US, including counterattack or retaliatory measures against hostile US actions, and preparing to forge closer cooperative relations with other countries when necessary. Many US allies and partners are no doubt economically advanced, but they are still highly dependent on US security guarantees. Therefore, they know it isn’t easy to contend against the US, so they have to compromise or succumb to Washington to varying degrees. Trump has recently adopted an arrogant and unfriendly attitude toward US allies and partners, arousing displeasure and concern among them. On the contrary, and somewhat surprisingly, Trump’s attitude toward China is mild and pragmatic so far.
He actively invited President Xi Jinping to attend his presidential inauguration. Xi’s special representative, Vice-President Han Zheng, will attend the ceremony, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.
Trump’s stance on the online social platform TikTok is also different from that of the Biden administration. He and his Cabinet members have not made provocative remarks on the Taiwan question. Simultaneously, China has responded in good faith and expressed a willingness to cooperate with the US. Recent developments show that China and the US do not want their relations to become too strained, and both sides hope to leave room for maneuvering or improvement.
Compared with other countries, China is more capable of countering or retaliating against hostile US actions. After eight years of an all-around and unrestrained US containment and assault on China, Beijing has accumulated considerable wisdom, capability and resilience to resist a further US offensive. Notably, China has significantly reduced its dependence on the US for trade, technology and finance and has begun to respond swiftly, toughly and lethally to US sanctions. In recent months, outgoing US President Joe Biden has been almost frantically coercing allies to join the US in imposing severe export restrictions on exports of high-end technology products to China and imposing large-scale sanctions on Chinese technology companies, e-commerce giants and other companies on various pretexts. The US even blatantly violated the three Sino-US joint communiques by selling high-end weapons and equipment to Taiwan. China retaliated with countermeasures, causing significant losses to American companies and the US economy. Trump and his China hawks are fully aware of this and are likely to handle relations with China more carefully in the days ahead. Many have noticed that Trump is noncommittal rather than appreciative of Biden’s highly hostile actions against China. Therefore, it is too early to determine whether Trump will continue or intensify Biden’s severe containment policy on China. However, since Trump has repeatedly claimed that tariffs are a good thing and the best means to protect US interests, a new trade war against China with tariffs as the primary weapon is quite possible. However, since the US knows that China will take drastic actions to resist US hostility, Washington may exercise some restraint on the next round of the trade war against China. Therefore, the new round of the trade war may not be as bad as many have anticipated in terms of scale and cost.
From the perspective of international politics, Trump’s foreign policy will weaken the US’ ability to contain China to a certain extent. Biden and his staff often boast of the steadfast support of US allies and partners in the confrontation between China and the US, and the US has substantially increased cooperation with other countries in trade and technology during his presidency, thus gaining some ground in its containment strategy, which of course is much less significant than what Biden has hoped for or believed it would be.
China has a large domestic market, which continues to open up to other countries. More and more economic areas have opened to foreign investors and corporations, allowing more countries to share the benefits of China’s economic development. China is the leading trading partner of more than 150 countries and regions. As of 2023, China had signed 22 free trade agreements with 29 countries and regions, which cover about one-third of China’s total foreign trade. The number is expected to continue to increase, injecting an endless impetus into global development. China has also spared no effort to promote the construction of regional free trade areas (such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) and multilateral economic cooperation platforms (such as the Belt and Road Initiative and BRICS), vigorously advocated a new type of economic globalization, and embraced great openness. More and more countries, including most US allies and partners, have common interests with China.
There is no doubt that the motto often cited by Chinese leaders — “Both countries benefit from peace and lose from conflict” — should be the basic principle that should be followed in the relations between the two countries
China is also an active supporter and contributor to important international organizations and agreements, especially the UN and its affiliated agencies, the WTO, the WHO and the Paris Agreement. China respects and values the role and functions of those organizations in maintaining the international order and promoting global development, and at the same time, urges them to build a more equitable, open and inclusive international order through continuous reform and innovation. Many countries have appreciated and supported China’s efforts and performance in maintaining international order and promoting global development.
The US constantly boasts that the network of allies and partners it leads is its unparalleled strategic advantage over China. However, over the past decade or so, because of social and political changes in the US, the trend of isolationism and unilateralism in the US has become increasingly intense and challenging to reverse. Even though Biden continued to confirm the importance of allies and partners such as European countries, Japan and South Korea and to strengthen cooperation with them to a certain extent, the relationship between the US and those countries is not equal or cordial. The US is not only increasingly unwilling to grant benefits to them but often harms their interests or competes with them. The most obvious evidence is that the US market is increasingly closed to its allies and partners. Still, at the same time, the US demands that they buy more US products, such as natural gas, agricultural products, and high-tech products. The US is increasingly unwilling to sign free trade agreements with other countries and has even threatened to modify or withdraw from existing free trade agreements. Critical is its allies’ declining confidence in the US’ security commitments.
The American nationalism, unilateralism and isolationism behind Trump’s slogans, such as “America First” and “Make America Great Again”, will become even more ferocious. Trump’s primary supporters come from blue-collar workers, low-income whites, religious conservatives and groups opposed to economic globalization. The political influence and clout of these supporters has been growing in recent years. Trump can’t open the US market or benefit other countries against their wishes. To consolidate and expand his political base, Trump will make more demands and blackmail his allies and partners, benefiting the US at the expense of others. Since the US’ allies depend on it in many aspects, US actions will achieve some results with much discontent among its allies. However, the US’ allies and many countries will choose to improve or strengthen relations with China for their own interests and to prevent further decline in the international order. Recently, many Western countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany, have actively sought to build closer economic and trade relations with China and to increase cooperation in more areas. China has also actively taken multifold measures to expand its circle of friends under the policy of “partnership without alliance”. In this situation of global turbulence and uncertainties, although China does not have an alliance network as the US has built, it is gaining more and more friends, and their substantive interests are closely connected. At the same time, the trust and dependence of US allies and partners on the US continues to decline. China will garner more significant and more sincere support from the international community when it confronts the US, giving China greater confidence and ability to cope with and counterattack US hostility.
It can be seen from President Xi Jinping’s important speech in Macao in December that the central government required Hong Kong, as an international metropolis, to play a key role in China’s grand strategy of making more friends. On the one hand, Hong Kong must strengthen its ties with other countries worldwide; on the other hand, it must do a good job as a superconnector between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world. This work will not only expand the country’s influence and appeal in the world. It will also enhance the strategic value of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” implementation to the country and benefit Hong Kong’s future development.
Given that Trump’s character and behavior are so mercurial, inscrutable and unpredictable, it is difficult to predict the future trend of US-China relations accurately. The base-case scenario is that even if Trump tries to contain China’s rise, the US will never be able to prevent China from becoming prosperous and powerful and the Chinese nation from moving toward great rejuvenation. Meanwhile, the US will inevitably pay an unbearable price for such a futile endeavor. Although Trump has, from time to time, boasted that his “madman theory” can effectively force his opponents to compromise or submit, it certainly does not work with China. However, as a politician with a business background and who has accumulated years of political experience, Trump should be able to calculate the gains and losses in the tussle with China, and is likely to use more pragmatic and rational policies to seek the most benefits for the US in the process. If this is the case, although US-China relations will still experience ups and downs in the future, the two sides are not expected to descend into a situation of extreme tension and lose-lose. There is no doubt that the motto often cited by Chinese leaders — “Both countries benefit from peace and lose from conflict” — should be the basic principle that should be followed in the relations between the two countries. I guess Trump will eventually appreciate this to some extent. Therefore, despite the gloom and constant struggle between China and the US under the Trump administration, I still harbor well-wishes for US-China relations.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
