Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US president-elect Donald Trump’s bromance could be rekindled next year, if both sides play their cards right. This is positive and would help create the right environment for an improvement in ties between the two superpowers, but timing and tone are everything. The economic rivals would need to give and take to prevent the relationship from getting worse.
There are potential signs of a rapprochement. It was a smart move by the US president-elect to invite Xi to his inauguration next month (the Chinese leader reportedly turned it down), but future attempts need to be more than just empty gestures to make a real difference.
A face-to-face meeting, sooner rather than later, is essential to set the tone of the bilateral relationship over the next four years. The alternative is continued misunderstanding, which in the worst-case scenario, could lead to actual conflict.
Illustration: Mountain People
There is precedence for this. During Trump’s first term, he regularly talked up his warm ties with Xi, going so far as to say the two leaders “love each other.” Still, that did not stop the then-US president from imposing harsh trade tariffs on Beijing, the start of a prominent shift in US-China relations that solidified during the administration of US President Joe Biden.
Next year looks set to be another challenging one for Xi. China is facing a continued loss of investor confidence, a deepening real-estate crisis, ballooning local government debt, a volatile stock market, deflationary pressures and increasing popular discontent. Improving relations with the US could go a long way toward lifting sentiment at home.
To do that, Xi would have to find some common ground with Trump. That would not be easy. During his campaign, Trump floated revoking Beijing’s most-favored-nation status. He also said he would slap tariffs of as much as 60 percent on all imports from China. Bloomberg Economics says this would manifest itself in three waves of tariff hikes, starting in summer next year, with levies on China ultimately tripling by the end of 2026. Further analysis indicates China could say goodbye to 83 percent of its sales to the US, a huge pressure on exports that are already suffering.
A Trump presidency is forcing China out of its economic policy inertia. Last week’s annual economic work conference made “boosting consumption” its top priority, with the readout calling for specific measures such as increasing government-sponsored pension and medical insurance payments.
The president-elect is using tariffs as leverage. He has a potential Cabinet lined up with China hawks who could revive hardline trade policies.
The Chinese leader is well aware of the impending threats, so he has been making an effort. After Trump’s election, he reached out with a congratulatory message stating that “both China and the US stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.” However, this relationship has to work on Beijing’s terms, too.
It is clear what Xi’s boundaries are. During last month’s APEC meeting with Biden, he emphasized the “four red lines” that Washington should not cross: Taiwan, democracy and human rights, the Chinese political system, and Beijing’s right to development. The declaration was a clear warning to the Trump administration that breaching them could further heighten tensions.
Some form of formal communication channels should be established before any further tariffs are imposed by Washington to prevent a cycle of retaliation from Beijing. If that does not happen, it would take months or even longer to get both sides back to the negotiating table. There is a potential template that exists for talks: The strategic channel between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) that has helped stabilize relations since 2022.
There have been rare moments of coming together. Most recently, the countries signed an agreement extending bilateral government-to-government scientific cooperation for another five years. It allows for science and tech cooperation, but minimizes the risk to national security, and keeps the development of critical and emerging technologies off-limits to Beijing.
On China’s side, rebuilding relations would depend on its perception of Trump’s new national security team and whether there would be any room to create back channels for future negotiations. The new Washington administration could adopt a more transactional approach that could leave Taiwan’s security ending up as a bargaining chip. Last week’s naval exercises around the Taiwan Strait were among Beijing’s largest in 30 years, Taiwanese officials said, a reminder that China sees Taiwan as its own, and it wants the US to stay out of its way.
The most we can hope for is a renewed cordiality between Trump and Xi. The nature of the US-China relationship would be defined by strategic competition. Preventing further deterioration is crucial.
Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC’s lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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