On Nov. 7, 2024, Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to President-elect Trump that said:
“A stable, healthy, sustainably developing China-U.S. relationship fits with the common interests of the two countries and with the expectations of international society. I hope the two sides will keep to the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, strengthen channels of dialogue, improve control over differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and move down the road of correctly getting along in a new period, with prosperity for both countries and benefits to the world.”
Subsequently, other Chinese sources, as well as Xi in his final meeting with President Biden at the APEC summit on Nov. 16, repeated this line of thought: China wants more rather than less cooperation with the U.S. An article in the People’s Daily the day after Xi’s message by Zhong Sheng (The Bell), an authoritative editorial collective, reinforced it, saying: “Win-win cooperation is the trend of the times and should be the bottom line of China-U.S. relations.”
The writers reminded readers of China-U.S. economic interdependence:
“Today, China is the third-largest export market for U.S. goods, and the U.S. is China’s third-largest trading partner. Over 70,000 U.S. companies invest and operate in China, and exports to China alone support 930,000 US jobs. Last year, 1,920 new U.S. companies were established in China, and 80 percent of U.S. companies in China plan to reinvest their profits this year.”
The commentary cited achievements of China-U.S. cooperation in diplomacy, finance, climate change, and military-to-military communication. Thus, wrote Zhong Sheng, “whether promoting world economic recovery or resolving international and regional hotspot issues, China-U.S. coordination and cooperation are needed.”
Coordination and cooperation are very unlikely to be realized, however, because of probably insuperable obstacles each country has set. The second Trump administration will not merely reject engagement, as Biden’s did; this time around, relations with China will be on a much steeper slope. Under Trump, we will no longer hear about “managing” relations or looking for shared interests. U.S. officials are unlikely to repeat promises to China to uphold the One-China policy and not seek to change China’s system. Stabilizing the U.S.-China relationship, which drew praise from Xi at his final meeting with Biden—”The [China-U.S.] relationship has remained stable on the whole,” Xi said—will no longer be important to Washington.
There are several already clear reasons for this conclusion: Trump’s announced determination to impose very high tariffs on Chinese goods, his appointment of China hawks to key national security positions, the bipartisan hostility toward China in Congress, China’s high unfavorable rating in American public opinion, and the advice Trump has received from previous appointees in the Project 2025 report. Moreover, as I discuss below, Trump, unlike Biden, will not be distracted from his China policy by overseas conflicts.
As for China, the emphasis on points of actual and potential collaboration with the U.S. is just one piece of its America policy. Xi qualifies cooperation in important ways—by saying that the U.S. must have a “correct strategic perception” of China, must adhere to the three principles mentioned in Xi’s message to Trump, and must choose between “partnership or rivalry.” Those qualifications aim at specific elements of US policy: security alliances directed at the “China threat,” military and political support of Taiwan, and denial of semiconductor and other high-tech exports to China. U.S. presidents, Donald Trump least of all, have not been moved by appeals to principle. Nor have they been open to “correcting” their perceptions of China to suit Beijing.
The Far Right’s China Hawks
Nevertheless, it is worth examining where room for a China-U.S. deal might exist. A major caveat is in order, however: We have to recognize that Donald Trump’s modus operandi centers, as Bob Woodward has said in his various books on Trump, on fear and winning. In Trump’s transactional framework, the “art of the deal” is to instill fear in the opponent, never fold, and focus on winning. And winning means getting a “good return on investment,” not compromising for short-term gain and most certainly not hoping to promote trust. In his first administration, Trump had to deal with advisers who were not all in on Trump’s style—policy managers who valued diplomacy as an alternative to confrontation. Now, with few guardrails to restrain Trump, he will dominate the policy making scene as never before. His appointments of loyalists, some of whom are viscerally hostile to China and others of whom are vastly inexperienced, virtually ensure that Trump’s word will be unquestioningly followed.
We have three early signs of the China hawks’ intentions.
In the House of Representatives, the Republicans’ “China Week” agenda—an agenda put forward in October 2024 that basically calls for decoupling from China in multiple ways, including in trade, investment, educational exchanges, and scientific collaboration—is being readied for approval with some Democrats’ support.
And the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s annual report to Congress recommends even more provocative steps, such as revoking China’s bilateral free trade privileges; barring the import of technologies from China; and creating a Manhattan Project to achieve artificial intelligence capable of surpassing human cognition.
A third sign comes from Project 2025, which Trump has disavowed even though many of its authors once worked for him. Among them are Kiron K. Skinner, who labels China “the defining threat”; Christopher Miller, who writes that China is “a challenge to American interests across the domains of national power” and an imminent threat to Taiwan; and Peter Navarro, author of books on the China threat. Navarro’s Project 2025 chapter includes this warning:
“The clear lesson learned in both the Obama and Trump Administrations is that Communist China will never bargain in good faith with the U.S. to stop its aggression. An equally clear lesson learned by President Trump, which he was ready to implement in a second term, was that the better policy option was to decouple both economically and financially from Communist China as further negotiations would indeed be both fruitless and dangerous . . . ”
Room for a Deal?
What might a good return on investment look like to Trump? Since his top priority is trade, he would aim at a major increase in Chinese purchases of U.S. goods to reduce the trade deficit (even though that didn’t work the first time around) and improved conditions for U.S. investments, all while retaining sharp restrictions on advanced technology exports to China. In return, Trump might be willing to lower U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. He also might induce Xi by promising to reduce U.S. arms aid and high-level visits to Taiwan, though he might get pushback from strongly pro-Taiwan officials such as Marco Rubio (nominated for secretary of state) and Mike Waltz (nominated for national security adviser).
Trump would be far less interested in making a deal on China’s military aid to Russia, climate change, scientific and other exchanges, or human rights. Some of those issues are important to some Republicans, but they rank low (if at all) among Trump’s priorities.
Nor would strategic issues that have bipartisan and Pentagon concern necessarily get Trump’s attention: the South China Sea disputes (including protection of Philippines ships), U.S. security coalitions in Asia (the Quad and AUKUS), and competition with China in the Pacific island microstates. In Trump’s mind, these involvements soak up U.S. resources and risk unacceptable levels of commitment. But they could be bargaining chips. Trump might be willing to backtrack on U.S. security commitments in Asia, bilateral and multilateral, if a winning commercial deal proved attainable.
If the “art of a deal” proves illusory, Trump may seek to weaponize tariffs. But China might, as happened in Trump’s first term, prefer a trade war to giving in to Trump’s demands. In my previous writings, I offered several reasons why the threat of very high U.S. tariffs will not work with the Chinese. They’re ready this time, and have already taken measures to deal with the tariff threat, such as by shifting export markets to the Global South and Europe.
We’re at a point in U.S.-China relations where deal making is going to be very difficult even in the best of circumstances. Mutual trust is very low, and once Trump takes over, initiatives to “get along,” as the Chinese say, will not be offered. Consequently, it will not take much to derail diplomacy altogether, as happened after the spy balloon incident in February 2023 or, in November 2024, China’s rejection of a meeting between defense ministers because (China said) of a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.
Chinese proposals for deeper cooperation will be used to demonstrate that they are the reasonable party and that the Americans are as unpredictable as they are untrustworthy. And China will use that argument to try driving a wedge between the US and its allies in the European Union and East Asia. Feel the chill of the coming Cold War.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.
Share
