With his Twitter comments Trump has exploded the illusions of those who believed his election is good for China and U.S.. As for being good for U.S. I just need to list his appointments for his cabinets of fellow billionaires, anti-labor, anti-minimal wage increases, non-believers of climate changes, anti-choice etc. While the slogan ” Make America Great Again” is catchy and his campaign against foreign involvements are superficially appealing, to me it was always based on false premises. For how can you increase military spending, more personnel, more warships, more fighters, while retrench foreign involvements? Empire does not voluntarily retrench. To make American great again, you need to put down any upstart challengers, and the number one on the target is of course China.
Trump is to me like a mafia godfather sitting in his lair, Trump Tower receiving obeisance and tributes from former competitors and underlings. He demands more protection money from Japan and Europe, provoking China and Iran while embracing Russia with childish delight, and dispensing favors like Carrier jobs and throwing thunderbolts like criticizing F35 and Air Force-1 costs. His inauguration is more than 1 month away, but China better be prepared for his ascension.
Many in Chinese media consider Trump to be a businessman, and doing business was no problem for China, but that was obviously a mistake. For a godfather, Don Drumpf will be my way or highway, China has to be firm. Trade obviously will be the first casualty, expect some tariffs and retaliations. Taiwan obvious will be the redline, core interest for China, but China should play a waiting game. There is no point in confronting U.S. militarily at present. Continue the one road, one belt strategy, move more aggressively in space technology. Embrace other powers in Europe, Germany, Iran, Cuba etc. Wait out the Trump bubble to burst in U.S..
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pug_ster says
I don’t think there will be any board stroke tariffs for Chinese goods. Most Republicans use wars and arm sales for profit. Like the war in Iraq was initially for profit when the profit from oil was to be used to ‘rebuild’ the country. Considering that Terry Branstad is going to be China’s Ambassador, there will be business deals with China is trying to bring Chinese money to invest in the US, very much like talks about building the iphone in the US from Foxconn.
Trump will probably steal from the poor and give to the Rich. In my post about the Coming War on China, Obama’s plan is to spend 1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear weapons and sending 2/3 of America’s fleet to the Pacific. We don’t know what’s in the crystal ball how a Trump Presidency will look like, but I think it will be better than an Obama/Clinton one.
Allen says
Trump, like with so many other things, got China wrong. Taiwan is a red line, it’s not to be played around. But I also think this hoopla is due to people reading too much into this actions/words. We’ll see on this, but let me also explain.
In some ways, Trump by being “truthful” to his guts, has revealed a certain truth.
This is what he twitted on 12/2/2016:
The worry here whether Trump is calling into question U.S.’s “one China” policy. It would be bad if Trump is … because that is the foundation of U.S.-China relations. If U.S. doesn’t respect that, there can’t be that much relationship to build.
Yet …
If there is really a “one China” policy, what the f$@^ is U.S. selling Taiwan “billions” of arms?
The reality is that the U.S. doesn’t really have a true “one China” policy – only a diplomatic, politically-correct, superficial one.
So China must recognize that. What Trump said is not sacrilegious. He is really only revealing the inconvenient truth…