As the White House hosted two rather lukewarm and awkward summits between US President Donald Trump and leaders of the two closest American allies, UK’s Theresa May and Germany’s Angela Merkel, Beijing this month hosted two warm and lavish visits for leaders from two other close US allies—Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And starting today, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang begins his week-long visit to two other US allies, Australia and New Zealand, which are already witnessing a clamour to invite China to be the new anchor for the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) that stands deserted by Trump triggering speculations about a crisis of credibility for the US global leadership, at least in the Asia-Pacific.
Meanwhile last Saturday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson completed his debut Asia trip, a visit to Beijing, marking another U-turn in Trump’s ‘most consistent’ China policy. It was partly Trump himself who facilitated this shift. First, as part of his presidential campaign, Trump had denounced China for “raping this country” and “stealing our jobs”, promising to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 45 per cent. On being elected, Trump chose to first call Taiwan President Tsai Ingwen and questioned the ‘One- China’ policy, pushing Beijing to protest angrily. Last Friday, bruised by a North Korean missile test, he tweeted how China was doing little to prevent its communist ally that was “behaving very badly”.
Yet, in his Thursday telephone talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he had assured his Chinese counterpart of his commitment to the ‘One China’ policy. US allies are sure quick to learn from such fantastic Trumpspeak! It is in this backdrop that Tillerson firmly underlined in Beijing how Trump places “very high value on the communications that have already occurred” between Xi and him, and is looking forward to “the opportunity for a visit” to Beijing. Indeed, both sides are working hard for Trump’s early visit which could happen as soon as within the next four weeks unless the Chinese manage to convince him to join their much-hyped One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Summit in May which got a shot in the arm this week with the UN Security Council also recognising its remit. The UNSC, in its resolution extending its ongoing assistance mission in Afghanistan, called for international efforts to strengthen the implementation of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative. This came soon after Trump’s decision to slash American financial contributions to the UN and its agencies. More than two dozen heads of state have already decided to attend China’s OBOR summit.
These include India’s neighbours like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan while others like Nepal and the Maldives may soon fall in line. Reminding one of the imperious finesse of the 1972 Nixon visit to China, Tillerson met President Xi at the Great Hall of the People where the Chinese patriarch acknowledged how the US secretary of state had underlined that US-China relations “can only be friendly” and said he appreciated it. In a joint press conference later, while Tillerson asserted how both sides “share a common view”, foreign minister Wang Yi advised the US to remain “coolheaded” to “arrive at a wise decision” on the North Korean crisis. As if all roads lead to Beijing, last week also saw the chief of army staff of America’s frontline ally against al- Qaeda, General Qamar Javed Bajwa of Pakistan, having a successful China visit where both sides agreed to a whole range of new defence cooperation initiatives including China raising its marine force from 2,000 to 10,000.
These, for the first time ever, will be deployed abroad including at Gwadar and Djibouti. At the global level as well, while Trump’s ‘America First’ policy promises to promote protectionism, starting from Xi’s Davos speech last January, China is being seen as the powerful new proponent of the liberal world order pushing for free trade in the name of equity and justice. While Trump seems lukewarm towards America’s European allies, he has already give up on ‘rebalancing’ via a ‘pivot’ to the Asia-Pacific, triggering palpable trends of uncontested expansion of the rising China’s geo-strategic footprint.
Rodrigo Duterte, the president of Philippines—a country that took the South China Sea issue to the International Court of Arbitration resulting in its June 12 judgment rejecting China’s historic claims based on its notorious nine-dash line—has discarded this arbitration to engage Beijing in hope of FDI and other benefits flowing from China’s OBOR initiative. Britain, the closest US ally, which remains determined to exit the EU became a founding member of China’s AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) last year leaving the US visibly isolated. Premier Li’s visit to Australia and New Zealand presents a test case for measuring the magnitude of China’s rise. Ostensibly, his visit is aimed at upgrading China’s FTAs to enhance Beijing’s imports from these two countries. But it is important to note that Australia, whose population is little more than that of Delhi, has twice as much bilateral trade with China compared to India.
Little over a decade ago, Australia’s trade with China was about half of India’s trade with that country. No doubt, Australia’s China policy has gone from being adversary to exploring a partnership and since January, Australian PM Turnbull has floated the idea of inviting China into the TPP. Likewise, ASEAN, created in 1967 to contain China, has given the leadership of its 16-nation Regional Economic Cooperation Partnership to Beijing. New Zealand, with a population less than that of Chennai, has trebled its trade with China in the last eight years reaching $23 billion in 2016. Hopefully, our China experts are watching carefully.
Swaran Singh
Professor, School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi
Email: ssingh@jnu.ac.in