By Steve Benen
February 13, 2017
On Friday, China Xinhua
News, the official news organization of the Chinese government, published a
tweet asking a provocative question. In a phone call with Chinese
President Xi Jinping, the message read, Donald Trump “agreed to honor” the
One-China policy, “though he had publicly challenged it. What has changed his
mind?”
Yes, Trump’s fiasco
was so severe, he found himself being trolled by Chinese state-run media. (The
message wasn’t intended for a Chinese audience – Twitter is banned in the
country.)
The New York Times reported
over the weekend that the rookie president managed to avert a more serious
confrontation with Beijing, but Trump also made a lasting impression on China
that beneath all of his posturing, the American president is quite weak.
“Trump lost his first
fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger,” said Shi Yinhong, a
professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, in Beijing,
and an adviser to China’s State Council. “This will be interpreted in China as
a great success, achieved by Xi’s approach of dealing with him.”
Mr. Trump’s reversal on
Taiwan is likely to reinforce the views of those in China who see him as merely
the latest American president to come into office talking tough on China, only
to bend eventually to economic reality and adopt more cooperative policies.
That could mean more difficult negotiations with Beijing on trade, North Korea
and other issues. […]
American leadership was
damaged by Mr. Trump staking out a position and then stepping back, said Hugh
White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University
and the author of “The China Choice,” a book that argues that the United States
should share power in the Pacific region with China.
White told the Times that the Chinese will now see Trump as “weak” as a result of
his handling of the dispute.
The White House can take
some comfort in the fact that an entirely different scandal – Michael Flynn’s
controversial chats with Vladimir Putin’s Russian government – is such a
dominant issue, because if more people heard about this One China disaster,
it’d be even more humiliating for the amateur president.
As we discussed
on Friday, Trump was only too eager to talk tough before taking office, talking
openly about his willingness to abandon the One China policy – a bipartisan
policy carefully crafted over the course of decades – or at least use it as a
bargaining chip in future negotiations.
Confronted with some mild
diplomatic pressure from Beijing, Trump folded like a cheap suit, gave China
exactly what it wanted, and gained nothing but embarrassment in return.
In one cringe-worthy
incident, the new American president showed he’s willing to abandon his
tough-guy rhetoric at a moment’s notice, while demonstrating his deal-making
skills are a joke.
The White House is very,
very lucky this ignominious failure has largely been overlooked by much of the
political world.
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