By Tom Fowdy
It is quite striking that Fox News, of all outlets, has described the recent summit between the leaders of China and the United States through the lens of Donald Trump looking "to usher in a new era with China."
While the article's argument is inevitably sceptical, given Fox's firebrand Conservative tone, and subsequently sought Gordon Chang for comment, it is nonetheless staggering that it would acknowledge such a paradigm shift is underway, with its own narrative being forced to acknowledge that "for years, being "soft" on China was a political insult hurled across the aisle [and] Great-power competition ruled." Yet now, as it notes, "The scene in D.C. last week looked markedly different as President Donald Trump [attempted] to welcome in a new era with the world's second-biggest superpower."
While we should not be naïve in assuming many aspects of China-US geopolitical competition will go away, and neither will they by Trump's own words and deeds either, the political decision to roll out the red carpet for China's leader in Washington D.C. in a grand summit undoubtedly marks a paradigm shift which closes down an era of ardent hostility that dominated geopolitics from 2019-2014, of which many described as "Cold War." In doing so, Trump has consciously narrowed the paradigm of issues between the two countries to economic and commercial rivalry, as opposed to ideological confrontation.
I will never forget how, six years ago, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a staged address at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California. The choice of location was deliberate in its political symbolism, for it was Nixon whom in his unprecedented 1972 visit to China and meeting with Mao Zedong, opened up the paradigm of modern relations and engagement between the United States and China. By staging his address at that location, Pompeo sought to communicate a very clear message, that he would be the one drawing it to a close and opening a new one, which by his own desires would not be defined by engagement, but by ideological confrontation.
Pompeo subsequently framed China as a threat to the "free world" and pursued an enormous information warfare campaign which sought to push allegations of genocide in the Xinjiang autonomous region as a geopolitical weapon to mobilize public opinion against Beijing. For Trump, he had personally only been concerned about trade with China, but his first administration had seen itself surrounded by old guard Republican NeoConservatives, who were readily able to exploit the turmoil created by the COVID pandemic in order to try and permanently change the paradigm.
And for a long time, it genuinely appeared as if they had won. When Joe Biden came to office in 2021, he did not reverse course on his predecessor's foreign policy, but wholeheartedly embraced it, before later refining it into a military and technological confrontation. It was subsequently the conclusion of many that US-China geopolitical competition was now a structurally entrenched, "new normal" with talk of "decoupling" and potential war being constant. Yet now, Trump in his second term has rowed a great deal of the hostility back, at least in terms of rhetoric or political emphasis, in the pursuit of a narrowed focus on commercial and technological competition.
In Trump's eyes, Xi Jinping remains a competitor, but a partner nonetheless to be treated courteously and statesmanlike. Contrast this with Joe Biden, who denounced Xi as a "thug" and during a virtual summit, rebuffed Xi's "old friend" rhetoric with "I'm not your friend." His administration did not attempt any deals or breakthroughs with China, largely avoiding engagement, and was responsible for dramatically escalating tensions over Taiwan through a foreign policy which sought to deliberately move the goalposts over the "One China Policy", something Trump has also rowed back.
But does it remain accurate to describe this as a "new era of relations" as Fox has styled it? In my opinion, many of the conclusions remain accurate about US-China competition, and this is not something that summits that are high on style and political symbolism, but low on substance, can ultimately change. For even despite these recent events, the underlying reality does not shift: China is a rising economic, military and technological superpower, of which poses a myriad of challenges to the traditional dominance of the United States. America sees its hegemony as a form of entitlement and destiny, and has in the bigger picture not adapted well to the fraying of the post-1991 unipolar order.
Trump himself is the greatest champion of that hegemony, who sincerely believes America should be first and "win," so to speak. It is more business-centred, pragmatic, and less ideological than the typical D.C. foreign policy hack, but it is nonetheless the same principle expressed ironically, in a more realist manner, such as Nixon himself. Yet, this may reflect an underlying lasting truth that even as the United States and China compete, both countries have too much to lose to be embroiled in a lasting, Cold War confrontation, which despite the fantasies of NeoConservatives, does not reflect the world economy as it is today.
After all, let's look at who else was at that summit: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, as well as numerous other American technology and business magnates. These people don't see China in ideologically hostile terms, and this is a reminder that beyond Trump's personal preferences, the other side of the paradigm in the US that sees China as a business opportunity has never truly disappeared, and the political influence they exert is real. Thus, after years of hostility, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and the worst hawks have been put back in their box. We shouldn't expect US-China competition to go away, but the appetite for a hostile, ideological Cold War has diminished, at least for now.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | What can we reasonably expect from the upcoming Xi-Trump summit in Washington
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