By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
Trump is predictably unpredictable. For the first time in US politics, its president is weaponizing madness as a strategy.
Trump has rendered psychoanalysis obsolete. He is perhaps the most psychoanalyzed president in American history. Almost unanimously, they declare him psychotic or sociopathic. And yet these clinical judgments have left his appeal and electability untouched. So now, Trump is not only above the law, he is above Freudian analysis. Trump may be certifiable and a convicted criminal, but he has never been sent to the madhouse or the jailhouse. He is truly one-of-a-kind. Bullet-proof in more ways than one.
What is predictable about Trump is that he has two addictions: Like a narcissist, he goes after the hottest and the softest targets. Ukraine, unsurprisingly, is high on his agenda, losing no time in sending his Secretary of State to decide on the fate of the Ukrainians. He wants to own the biggest issues and the hottest potatoes because then he will monopolize the world's attention.
For him, issues are never about right and wrong, but whether they are bendable to his will. He is the stereotypical schoolyard bully. Panama has quickly caved in to his threats, henceforth letting US military vessels through the canal toll-free, with Panama fearfully backing out of China's Belt and Road initiative. Faced with a David-and-Goliath fight, its leaders wisely concluded that the asymmetric fight is unwinnable and an existential threat.
But Canada and Mexico are no pushovers. Both choose to push back hard. Trump quickly realizes that this tussle will be long drawn out, messy, and costly, and may not outlive his short attention span. Ditto Greenland and Denmark.
But he sees Ukraine at its most vulnerable—weary with war, with its territory and population depleted, and now abandoned by its most powerful supporter mid-conflict. As expected, Trump hit Ukraine when it was down. The US has given the war-torn country 95 billion in aid. Trump now demands that it repays the "debt" to the tune of 500 billion in mineral resources and rare earth. Zelensky is right to reject the demand as it would impoverish his country for a decade or more.
True to form, the US jawboned peace with Russia in Saudi Arabia, without either Ukraine or the EU at the table. The Europeans are in a panic. They have been banished to the sidelines unceremoniously, without so much as a courtesy heads-up. No wonder, rumors are being circulated, allegedly by a former KGB chief that Trump had been co-opted as a Russian mole thirty-five years ago. In the Trump era, there is no way of telling where fantasies begin and where conspiracies end. In this age of absurdity, the fantastic is simultaneously believable and unbelievable. People believe that Trump has plunged straight into the Ukraine conflict because he has set his sights on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. If so, there will be a collision of egos between Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk, already allegedly nominated for the same prize. In the Trump world, there can only be one winner—Donald J. Trump.
Where does China figure in all this chaos? Well, China, or rather the anti-China hysteria is no longer hot enough to dominate world headlines and capture his eyeballs. If it is not hot, Trump is cool to it. He hankers only after the splashiest and most talked-about issue with him at its epicenter. China is thankful for not being part of Trump's current conversation. Being in the shadows suits it just fine. The Ukraine miasma is likely to consume Trump for months to come. For now, China is not in Trump's crosshairs, as the Chinese hedgehog carries more painful needle-like spines than Canada and Mexico combined The more entangled America is in foreign misadventures, military and otherwise, the better the prospects of peace for China. Trump knows too well that China is too big to fail. Nor can it be wrestled down without the US getting a bloody nose. It is a blessing to be bystanders while the beasts battle it out in the back alley.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | How China reinvented itself--- A recipe for super-success in nation-building
Comment