China does not want the U.S. military taking unilateral action in Syria. Beijing has long said it prefers a multilateral approach, though over the course of six brutal years of war it has repeatedly used its veto power to vote with Russia against United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria ..
.. a call for sanctions over the use of chemical weapons.
.. Xi does not like surprises. Top Chinese leaders exist in a world where public appearances are tightly choreographed, the press is controlled and protocol is paramount. During the weeks of planning and negotiation that went into the Mar-a-Lago summit, every interaction and angle would have been discussed — from the handshake, to media availability, to the possibility of a rogue Trump tweet.
.. On Thursday night, conservative U.S. media painted the Syria hit as a bold but calculated warning. “He’s sending a message to the Chinese,”
.. Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper known for its nationalist tone, also saw the move as a projection of strength. In an editorial, the paper said Trump launched the strike “to establish his authority as the U.S. president.”
How China’s President Could Bully Trump
Xi Jinping may take advantage of an inexperienced and untested American leader.
Khrushchev came away convinced not merely that Kennedy was all talk and no action, but that he didn’t have the spine to counter Soviet aggression.
Within months, Moscow had given orders to build the Berlin Wall, and U.S. and Soviet tanks faced each other across Checkpoint Charlie. The following year, Khrushchev sent nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles into Cuba, precipitating an American naval quarantine and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
.. Just as Khrushchev believed of his country, Xi apparently believes that time is on China’s side, despite clear evidence of mounting economic problems at home. And like their Soviet predecessors, today’s Chinese believe that American society is too soft to commit to a long-term competition around the globe.
.. Unlike Kennedy, however, Trump has given Xi reasons to believe he is not fully committed to America’s postwar role in the world. The second most famous line from Kennedy’s inaugural address proclaimed that America “would pay any price, bear any burden … support any friend and oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” By contrast, Trump declared in his that “from this moment on, it’s going to be America First.”.. Trump’s America First rhetoric alone might have encouraged Xi to see how far the president can be pushed; the wide swings in Trump’s policy toward China may embolden the Chinese leader even further. What started out as a surprisingly hard line against China during the campaign and transition into office has significantly softened in the two months since he took office, leading to charges that Trump has flip-flopped or caved to Chinese pressure. In the days leading up to the summit, the president again took a harder line... The one trade move that Trump did make—withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership—is a boon to Beijing’s efforts to forge its own Asian free trade agreement... get Trump himself to agree to Chinese formulations of Sino-U.S. relations as ones of “mutual respect,” meaning respecting core interests like Taiwan, or “win-win” cooperation, whereby difficult issues like cyberattacks are shelved.Such were the statements made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on his recent trip to Beijing, which were eagerly trumpeted by the state-run press. If Trump mouthed the same phrases, it would give the appearance of a U.S. president essentially accepting China as an equal, if not dominant, power in Asia... he could declare an “air defense identification zone” over the South China Sea.. It would force Trump to respond—or seem to be acquiescing to the extension of China’s control in an area where multiple nations claim territorial rights... Xi could deploy fighter squadrons and anti-air and anti-ship missiles to other disputed islands. That would put China in a largely unassailable position in what is perhaps the world’s most vital waterway, and make American claims about protecting the high seas seem like empty proclamations... Xi could be even more convinced he can get away with some or all of these activities because the Trump administration is still largely bereft of high-ranking political appointees fit to make Asia policy... Two months into Trump’s term, no assistant secretary of defense or state for Asia has even been announced, let alone formally nominated.
President Trump’s Most Important Meeting
Most experts believe that the North will not abandon its nuclear program unless the leadership at the top changes. China opposes this because it fears a surge of refugees into its territory and wants to keep North Korea as a buffer against a potentially unified Korean Peninsula dominated by the American military.
The United States and China may have a long-shot chance at an achievable solution if they agree to increase sanctions on North Korea and pursue more modest goals — halting North Korean missile tests and curbing the production of additional nuclear weapons — but there has been no serious sign of interest from the Trump administration.
.. The risk in this meeting is that Mr. Trump knows little about diplomacy with China and does not have a team of China experts in place. He has already had to correct one major error; after calling into question America’s longstanding one-China policy
.. The meeting is also a test for Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, who, while also lacking foreign policy and government experience, has played a dominant role as the primary interlocutor with the Chinese, thus eclipsing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Xi Jinping’s Failed Promises Dim Hopes for Economic Change in 2nd Term
“I’m highly skeptical, since I don’t think it’s a lack of authority or the opposition of special interests that have kept him from moving in that direction so far,” said Scott Kennedy, the director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Rather, he’s operated according to his instincts in the face of economic challenges. And I don’t expect his instincts or those challenges to change much.”
.. “The boat sails best when the winds and waves are steady,” Liu Shiyu, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a news conference last Sunday. “Without stable market conditions, no reform can make progress, and there may even be reversal of the strides that we’ve made.”
.. And while many economists, including some of Mr. Xi’s top advisers, continue to lobby openly for more market-oriented policies, the government has also become less tolerant of those who directly and publicly criticize it for not doing enough, including by censoring them on social media.
.. It is Mr. Xi’s own policies, though, that raise the biggest questions about his commitment to change. As more and more capital has left China, the government has restored restrictions on moving money abroad.
While taxes have been increased on service industries, promises to introduce a property tax and other fiscal changes have made little headway. That logjam has left the finances of local governments in many manufacturing-dependent cities dangerously dependent on land sales for revenue.
.. Some of the initial hopes that Mr. Xi would turn out to be a market liberalizer were probably never realistic. The Chinese government’s idea of reform has never been the free-market bonanza that some economists advocate.
Even Deng Xiaoping, who first injected elements of capitalism into the Chinese economy in the 1980s, stressed that the government must retain control.
.. Most experts expect Mr. Xi will stay much the same leader he has been for five years, unless slowing growth and rising debt produce a shock. Yet the cost of inaction could be an increasingly debt-ridden, inefficient economy.
“If the government keeps meddling in the markets to ensure growth, then this road will become impassable,” said Mr. Li, the professor in Shanghai. “The problems won’t be solved and will only get worse.”