Donald Trump and the Chinese diplomacy of the United States: an irreversible turning point?
Donald Trump's tenure will have been marked by the standoff he has engaged with China over trade and technological relations. A confrontation from which the commentators readily retain several key episodes. Starting with this famous dinner on April 6, 2017 in Mar-a-Lago, when the American president announced to his Chinese counterpart, between pear and cheese, that he had just struck the Syria of Bashar Al-Assad, however supported by Beijing.
A week later, he employed "the mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, a warning about US technological and military capabilities explicitly addressed to both China and North Korea. Three years later, it was General Soleimani, one of the strongmen of the Iranian regime - also close to China - who was eliminated by an American strike.
In addition, through his unconditional support for Taiwan and his desire to remove North Korea from Chinese influence, Donald Trump marked a turning point in the history of American diplomacy vis-à-vis China. The harshness of the positions taken by Washington in recent years will be maintained regardless of the verdict of the ballot box in the coming days, even if Joe Biden passes to be a priori more conciliatory vis-à-vis China.
An inevitable confrontation?
The Trump presidency will have seen Washington lead an unprecedented offensive against China, in tone and in deed. The reorientation of US trade policy (since 2017) is structured around strategic competition with the PRC. While the Obama administration sought to establish the "right distance" from China and to practice "strategic restraint", the Trump administration systematically tightened the balance of power.
The relations between the two great world powers are complex and marked by a strong interdependence, which manifests itself in four essential areas: economic, military, technological and cultural. The confrontation is less commercial than geopolitical. The United States, the first economic power with a GDP in 2018 of 20 trillion dollars, has for two decades been overtaken by China whose GDP was 13 trillion dollars the same year, placing Beijing in second position in the world. If Chinese growth is settling around 5.5% to 6% per year, its reserves remain significant (2,500 to 3,000 billion dollars) and its powerful economic diplomacy. Beijing also holds nearly 30% of US debt. While the United States is both an envied model and an obvious rival to many Chinese, is the Sino-American confrontation inevitable?
What is certain is that Donald Trump surrounded himself with a team of experts, ideologists and connoisseurs of China, including Matthew Pottinger. The latter is known to be a tough line in trade negotiations. Even more, with the coronavirus health crisis and the election year, Trump endorsed a doctrine (initiated by Vice President Mike Pence) of a “new cold war” against Beijing, creating an anti-China front within which we find the neo-conservatives.
In Europe, we first glossed over, not without irony, on the electoral benefits that Trump would try to reap for his re-election for a second term by defending the agri-food industry through the establishment of quotas aimed at reducing imports from China. It is the tree that hides the forest. Because very quickly, the question, much more lucrative, of 5G is put forward. Pressure and admonition escalate. The daughter of the founder of Huawei is arrested, accused of embezzlement. The Europeans are being asked to drop the offers of the giant defended by Beijing while Koreans and Taiwanese withdraw from the Chinese market, massively depriving China of components essential to the production of semiconductors. Components that Beijing is not yet able to produce on its own.
Everyone has read The Trap of Thucydides - Towards War. According to its author, Graham Allison, war - in the majority of cases - cannot be avoided when an emerging power comes to challenge the reigning power. This theoretical field feeds strategic thinking on both sides of the Pacific. The coronavirus crisis has in no way alleviated the war scenarios. The 2020 decade suggests an ever more tenacious confinement in the script of “Thucydides' trap”. America's rivalry with China will continue to reshape the international order, alliances, institutions and rules.
Impossible peace, uncertain war
The election of Donald Trump did not fundamentally change the mapping of US strategic alliances in Asia. From this point of view, continuity is clear with the Third Offset Strategy announced at the end of 2014 by Chuck Hagel, then Secretary of Defense to Barack Obama, which aimed to outclass Chinese capabilities through a vast capability initiative. Since 2017, the resurgence of Mackinder's theories of "control of the island world," namely Eurasia, has permeated US foreign policy.
Washington-Pékin : une nouvelle guerre froide ? https://t.co/923CYnQhPc via @FR_Conversation
— Robert Kappel (@robert_kappel) June 12, 2020
Defense and security ties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and several countries in Southeast Asia (including Vietnam) have been strengthened by the deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-ballistic system in Korea. South (March 2017) in order to prevent possible North Korean missile fire. Military exercises, maneuvers and other Fonops (Freedom of Navigation Operations) have multiplied in the China Sea. Warships have been deployed there, including aircraft carriers, as well as detection and interception facilities. The strategic and military links with the Asia-Pacific partners are part of the overall framework of the “Indo-Pacific” concept, more precisely Free and Open Indo-Pacific, where we find the allies of the United States - Japan, Korea South, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, France, a few countries in Southeast Asia, India and the United Kingdom - all of which in Beijing's eyes constitute a perfect encirclement of the PRC in its regional environment .
Washington veut contrer «l’empire maritime» chinois https://t.co/d4bK029WVc
— Le Figaro Inter (@Figaro_Inter) July 14, 2020
For its part, China can also rely on a few partners: North Korea to a certain extent, Cambodia (strategic fulcrum in the heart of South-East Asia), Sri Lanka (point of support in the Indian Ocean against India) and Pakistan (which has nuclear weapons). The opening of a Chinese military base in Djibouti in 2017 testifies to a desire for expansion that feeds US concerns. Even if the military capabilities and experience of the United States are still clearly superior to those of the Chinese, the latter's increased military presence in Asia-Pacific and their influence on the riparian countries are gradually calling this superiority into question. Finally, Chinese military modernizations (space, cyber, nuclear, navy, aviation, ballistics, applications of artificial intelligence and quantum) are causing strategic uncertainties in Washington.
Chinese empowerment and American containment
In a speech delivered a few weeks ago to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the creation of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Xi Jinping called for China's full autonomy in high tech. The development of the digital Yuan to compete with the dollar's hegemony is a manifestation of the obsession with projected international control. For its part, the United States has accelerated its policy of containment of China since 2017. This is evidenced by the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (2017) and the publication of the Chinese strategy of the United States. last May.
Whatever the outcome of the US presidential election, Europe must prepare for the repercussions of the confrontation between the two powers, which is bound to last. Whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is elected, one thing is certain: the era after the end of the Cold War when American leadership on the planet was undisputed has come to an end.
