By Tom Fowdy
Contrary to the expectations of everyone, Donald Trump has abruptly ended the anti-China foreign policy epoch that his own previous administration started.
While the US President continues to reassert the US national interest on trade, which is to be expected, Trump has otherwise paused what was half a decade of anti-China fanaticism in Washington and ushered in a new détente in relations.
Although I have been noting this shift has been underway a while, for many people this revelation dropped like a brick with the new U.S National Security Strategy (NSS) document, an extremely important benchmark in narrating the strategic priorities and general direction of American foreign policy. The new NSS states that America's immediate priority is to secure the Western Hemisphere, thus as I stated before a new "Monroe Doctrine", and has also de-escalated language targeting China on the Taiwan issue.
While naturally, the United States does not want to cede dominance over the Asia-Pacific to China, the current change to its foreign policy trajectory might be described as "pragmatic" and "sensible," distancing itself from a Biden-era foreign policy which was objectively Neoconservative and militaristic. The policy of egging on promoting Taipei to "shift the goalposts" towards independence has stopped, and thus when Japanese ultra-hawk Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attempted to raise tensions on the issue to receive American backing (a classic in the Abe Shinzo playbook), she found herself isolated while in the face of retribution from Beijing.
In engineering this shift, Trump has recalibrated China from an adversary to an economic competitor, and his approach towards them is purely commercial, tariffs, deals, negotiations and trying to win over other countries into making arrangements more favourable to the United States. This is Trump's worldview and logic in its purest form. As I had eventually discovered years ago, the Anti-China extremism pushed by his previous administration was not so much from the President himself, but from those around him, a product of an unhinged foreign policy team led by Mike Pompeo, Matthew Pottinger and John Bolton (the latter who he's now prosecuting).
Together, Pompeo and Pottinger ultimately seized the political fallout of COVID to try and force a Cold War paradigm between Washington and Beijing, with that ultimately being embraced by Joe Biden, who then used his administration to escalate conflict all over the world. It appears there is some recognition that this approach was a mistake, with Biden's foreign policy having threatened global security, stability, and prosperity. In particular, the Trump administration clearly sees an emerging Russia-Beijing axis as geopolitically problematic, and has taken an approach arguing that engagement with both Moscow is in US strategic interests, while also advocating the belief that the US must be "in China" to "compete with China," slowly rolling back Biden's eyewatering chip embargos on the premise American attempts to cripple China's chip industry failed.
Thus, Trump has moved swiftly to unravel the Biden-era wars and geopolitical confrontations. First, bringing Israel-Gaza to a stalemate (not a resolution), second attempting to end the war in Ukraine and normalise with Moscow and third, removing Taiwan as a military flashpoint even as it seeks to maintain its interests there. Given I once severely feared the return of Mike Pompeo and Matthew Pottinger, this has been a godsend. Trump has, contrary to all expectations, effectively ended the Anti-China epoch of 2019-2024 in the first year of his administration. The numerous think-tanks and vile individuals which that previous Presidency pushed have been rightfully relegated to the margins. These people, once dominating the mainstream media narrative, are once again just a fringe echo-chamber online.
However, one shouldn't hold their breath, US foreign policy is infamous for its unpredictable paradigm shifts. A détente today, can be a Cold War flashpoint tomorrow. Trump right now is being a Richard Nixon of sorts, but who is to say a Ronald Reagan will not return one day? All it takes, in my opinion, is one NeoConservative democrat to attain office and start ripping up Trump's legacy, and in a vastly polarised America never have things felt more uncertain. Still, enjoy this while it lasts, Trump has actually done some good in the world.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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