Even if the United States and China take measures to slow down its trade war, Beijing is preparing for a wider rivalry with Washington to continue. For China, this means that its search for economic and diplomatic opportunities across Asia is unlikely to soften its difficult line on its regional territorial demands and its military competition.
Both parties have temporarily accepted Cut the surprisingly high prices they had imposed on the goods of the other. But the pricing truce will not lie down with the other grievances that Beijing has with Washington, as on a vow of the Pentagon to move the military forces in Asia and the Pacific, and continuous efforts to limit China access to advanced technology.
The rise in prices could open the way to a call, and a summit, between President Trump and the senior Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. But Mr. Trump’s high prices have already weakened the hopes kept in Beijing that Xi could call on the Trump negotiation team, experts told Chinese officials and political advisers. While Beijing will vigorously pursue opportunities in talks with the Trump administration, he will steal a possible tensions – repeating the model of relations during Mr. Trump’s first mandate.
“I think that validates the point of view of Beijing according to which it was correct to take a dark vision of American intentions – and to prepare for the possibility of a second trade war with the policies she exercised during the years following the first trade war” during the first mandate of Mr. Trump, “said Jonathan Czin, the Chair of the intelligence of Michael H. in Chinese Policy.
“My suspicion is that Beijing sees it as a tactical retirement from the United States rather than a more fundamental change in hostility towards the Chinese Communist Party,” Czin said about the price pause agreed in Geneva.
President Trump’s prices on a large part of the world gave Mr. Xi the opportunity to present China as a friendly and trustworthy alternative, a theme he promoted during a recent visit to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia and meetings this week with Latin American leaders.
But the emerging approach of China in the Trump era also includes the arrow of its power: basically, saying to other governments, in particular in Asia, not to expect Beijing to retain its regional claims and ambitions.
The same day as Washington and Beijing announced their truce on prices, a document for setting up the Chinese government’s policies warned that “external forces” posed an increase in “threats to border regions, border areas and China security in its surrounding areas”.
“The Asia-Pacific region has become an objective of contestation between the great powers,” said the Chinese national security book published on Monday. “Some countries have strengthened their military alliances in Asia-Pacific, courting regional partners, forming exclusive ”,” he said in a reference to the United States and its partners.
“Of course, he will continue to try to take advantage of the upheavals in Washington’s commercial policy by presenting himself as a stability and predictability lighthouse,” said Richard McGregor, main member of East Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, about China. “But he will not yield to pressing his assertions in the multiple disputes of sovereignty he has with his sea neighbors.”.
At the beginning of this month, a Chinese coastal guard helicopter flew to the airspace near the disputed islands also affirmed and controlled, by Japan, a long -standing escalation on the islands, called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. China said it was responding to a provocative flight over the islands by a Japanese plane.
This month too, the Chinese coastal guard landed on Sandy Cay, a sand ribbon in the disputed sea of southern China which is also claimed by the Philippines. Their action took place a few days before the United States and the Philippines started from the annual joint military exercises in the Philippines.
Above all, the Chinese government remains next to Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as its territory. In early April, the People’s Liberation Army organized exercises around Taiwan to train to impose a blockade.
Chinese leaders have not seen any contradiction in their mixture of sweets with the discussions and actions of the hard ball, said Julian Gewirtz, a former senior Chinese policy in the Department of the White House and the State during the Biden administration.
“They believe that it is precisely the time to define the relationship with the neighbors of China – in particular those who are worried have become too close with Washington – in more advantageous terms,” said Gewirtz. “This is a time when they believe that the ability of these states to be repelled is decreased and when China leaders can say” We can, yes, offer economic and technological agreements and other incentives. But we can also continue to press our territorial claims ”. And these two things coexist very comfortably in their minds. »»
Rifles have opened between the United States and many traditional allies, especially in Europe. But so far, Mr. Trump’s policies have not shaken traditional American alliances in Asia and the Pacific to the same degree. Marco Rubio attended a meeting with foreign ministers from India, Japan and Australia on his first full day as Secretary of State. Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan published a joint statement which mentioned their common concerns about Chinese threats against Taiwan.
“There is a continuity here in this region – with Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia,” said Ely Ratner, deputy defense secretary for Indo -Pacific Security Affairs under President Biden, about alliance links under Mr. Trump.
“The two parties, the United States and its Asian partners, are trying Silo to defense and their security and pricing environment security,” said Ratner, now director of the Marathon initiative, a group that studies American competition with China and other rivals. “The challenge now for Beijing is that most American allies consider China as their main threat of national security.”
China has applauded the dismantling of the office supervising the voice of America and other agencies promoting democracy and human rights under Mr. Trump.
But Xi and other Chinese leaders had a low vision of the United States’s intentions long before Mr. Trump entered politics. And in Mr. Trump’s first mandate, the spectacles of bonhomie between him and Mr. Xi gave way to a trade war, then an agreement that has won, Washington accusing China not to honor its side of negotiation. There was also acrimony on the origins of Covid, the American controls on technological exports and the military objectives of each team.
This time, mutual prices on prices do not dissipate a deep distrust between China and the United States, said Shen Dingli, scholar of international relations in Shanghai. If the two parties continue to meet on their trade disputes, relations can improve for a year or two, but are likely to get worse again, Mr. Shen said: “Because we have too many points of disagreement.”
