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Rex Tillerson’s attack on China adds to a febrile atmosphere
Donald Trump’s team may be hoping to gain negotiating leverage, writes James Kynge
11 HOURS AGO by: James Kynge
Most of China’s ancient canon of 36 stratagems for use in politics, war and civil interaction depend on guile and deception to achieve their goals. But so far, the messages from US president-elect Donald Trump to China have had all the subtlety of a full-frontal diplomatic assault.
If the disparate signals from Mr Trump and his team are taken together and acted upon, then it is not hyperbolic to imagine a new cold war in prospect. This is because some of the areas challenged by the Trump team are elemental to China’s self-image as a rising power.
The broadside unleashed on Wednesday by Rex Tillerson, nominee for US secretary of state, is a case in point. His warning that China will not be allowed access to islands it has built in the South China Sea targets one of Beijing’s strategic priorities. After thousands of years prioritising the defence of the middle kingdom from land-based invasions, China in 2015 issued an official “white paper” that reorientated its strategic posture, elevating maritime power to a position of prime importance.
Nowhere is more important than the South China Sea in Beijing’s mission to protect its “maritime rights and interests”, which include safe passage for its oil and commodity imports. The reefs and atolls that China has built into airstrips and weapons batteries are a crucial link in this endeavour. Similarly, the president-elect’s acceptance of a phone call in November from Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen, was seen in Beijing as an affront to the very foundation of the bilateral relationship stretching back to the 1970s.
Mr Trump’s subsequent questioning of whether his administration would continue to respect the “one China policy” — under which Taiwan is regarded as part of China — was seen as another temptation of fate. Beijing warned that if the “one China policy” was discarded there would be “nothing to discuss on co-operations in major fields” with the US.
Adding to this febrile atmosphere is tension over China’s opposition to the deployment by South Korea of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad), a missile defence system which Seoul sees as an essential protection against North Korean belligerence but Beijing regards as undermining its nuclear deterrent.
Of course, there is a possibility that the Trump camp is employing an ancient stratagem known in China as “stomping the grass to scare the snake” — intending to soften up Beijing for concessions demanded by the US at a later date.
After all, the list of areas over which Mr Tillerson expressed dissatisfaction with China on Wednesday leave plenty of potential room for negotiation and accommodation. China, he said, had fallen short of their commitments in economic and trade practices, stolen US intellectual property, been “aggressive and expansionist in the digital realm” and provided empty promises that it would press North Korea on nuclear weapons.
But to assume that the Trump team’s rancour is no more than skin deep — or is merely an exercise in accumulating diplomatic leverage that it hopes to negotiate away later for US advantage — may be a dangerously complacent view. |
