Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Donald Trump, the President-elect of United States of America, is not just sitting on his Trump Tower couch and counting the days till the January 20th inauguration. He is working on his own plans and quietly laying the groundwork for their execution. Like a newly recruited CEO of a multinational firm, the billionaire businessman is preparing for an entry with a bang.
Even before he assumes office as the President of the world’s most powerful nation, he has created a diplomatic storm with China, a nation which is gradually acquiring the necessary muscle to replace the US as the world’s number one power.
Trump is not unaware of the fact that China holds more than 7.5 percent of US debts, and the economic prosperity of the US is closely linked to the prosperity of China. He certainly knows that the two countries are bound by a symbiotic relationship and that theirs is the world’s most watched and the most important bilateral relations. At times and on certain issues, they are adversaries. They also cooperate on other issues. They are diplomatic frenimies.
Yet Trump decided to touch a raw nerve. He decided to upend a diplomatic protocol which the US has been diligently observing since it subscribed to the One-China policy in 1979 during the Jimmy Carter administration, years after the famous ping-pong diplomacy spearheaded by the Richard Nixon administration in the 1970s.
Last Friday, Trump agreed to accept a phone call from Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan -- a self-ruled breakaway province of China.
The phone call, according to Trump watchers, was not a mistake or blunder. It was the outcome of months of quiet preparation and deliberations among Trump advisers about a new strategy of engagement with Taiwan. They say it reflected “the view of hard-line advisers urging Trump to take a tough opening line with China.”
Yes, Trump is not just sitting on his Trump Tower couch, counting stars. He is already at work.
Eight years of Barack Obama foreign policies have embroiled the United States in two cold-war-like conflicts -- with Russia and China. The conflict with Russia stems largely from disagreements over the Ukrainian crisis, the eastward expansion of Nato, missile deployments and the war in Syria. The quasi-cold war with China, on the other hand, is mainly linked to the territorial disputes that US allies have with China in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Also causing great security concern for the US is China’s One-Belt-One-Road policy, part of which is the Maritime Silk Road that covers seas from China to Africa.
Two cold wars with two powerful states will be too much of a security burden for the US. So Trump wants to make Russia an ally. This was similar to the old game the US played in the 1970s. The Soviet Union was a formidable foe of the US in the 1960s. But when China distanced itself from the Soviet Union over ideological differences, the US seized the opportunity. The Nixon administration secretly worked towards normalising relations with China, first asking the US table-tennis team that went to Japan to make a detour to Beijing. Then Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor, made a secret journey to Beijing during a visit to Pakistan in 1971. Nixon himself visited Beijing in 1972.
Trump has sent signals to Russia that he will not interfere with Russia’s military operations in Syria though he has said he is determined to finish off ISIS. The admiration Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have for each other is mutual and no secret, though it is not clear how they would get about in sorting out the thorny issues that have caused a strain in relations between the two countries.
But Trump did not extend such niceties to China. During the campaign, he slammed China as a currency manipulator and threatened to impose 45 percent tariffs on imports from China.
Trump may not succeed in causing a fissure in the growing strategic alliance between Russia and China. But he can at least make Russia less hostile towards the US, allowing his administration to concentrate on China.
By talking to Taiwan’s president, Trump has sent China a message that his administration would do what it feels is necessary to safeguard US interests. When the phone conversation drew criticism from foreign policy experts, Trump in a tweet wrote: “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of South China Sea? I don’t think so!”
China wasted no time. Within 24 hours, it lodged a diplomatic protest.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it had lodged “stern representations” with what it called the “relevant U.S. side”, urging the careful handling of the Taiwan issue to avoid any unnecessary disturbances in ties.
“The one China principle is the political basis of the China-US relationship,” it said.
But on Wednesday, in what is seen as a move aimed at keeping China guessing, Trump picked Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, regarded as a friend of China, as US ambassador-designate to China.
China’s state-run Global Times in an opinion article said: “We need to get better prepared militarily regarding the Taiwan question to ensure that those who advocate Taiwan’s independence will be punished, and take precautions in case of US provocations in the South China Sea. If Branstad is appointed US ambassador, China should give a positive response. China needs to always prepare for the worst and stay open to the good.”
A Chinese language daily said in its headline, “Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut is stunning”.
Is Trump trying to reverse Carter’s One-China policy? On Tuesday, Trump met Kissinger, the brain behind the ping-pong diplomacy. It is not known what they discussed, but it would be naïve to assume that China did not figure in the talks. But Kissinger is a political realist who subscribes to the view that in politics there are no permanent friends, but only permanent interests. He also advocates the utmost prudence in foreign policy making. He may have taught some of the finer points in politics to Trump, who this week admitted that he regularly consulted President Obama on issues.
But what is clear is that Trump will take forward Obama’s Pivot to Asia policy to keep China under check. He has pledged to expand the US Navy from 274 ships to 350 ships to maintain military supremacy over China in the Asia Pacific region.
Trump and his team believe in the policy of peace through strength, a policy followed by hawkish US presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. But this policy, instead of achieving peace, only led to chaos and stood as a cover to justify US imperialistic moves.
