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Missiles on the Mar-a-Lago Menu for Xi and Trump

06 Apr 2017
By Professor Mark Beeson
Xi Jinping Photo Credit: Michel Temer (Flickr) Creative Commons

Kim Jong-un’s decision to fire a missile on the eve of  this week’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump will ensure a North Korean shadow looms over Mar-a-Lago. But trade will dominate and President Xi will need to exercise all his diplomatic skill.

The summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is not simply the first meeting between the world’s two most powerful men: it is also emblematic of just how much has changed in the world in the short time since Trump unexpectedly became president of the United States.

China’s president may be the more experienced figure, but dealing with America’s unpredictable leader will be a major test of his diplomatic skills, too. The stakes could hardly be higher for either man. Trump’s supporters will expect him to live up to some of his more belligerent and nationalist rhetoric about restoring America’s economic fortunes and curbing China’s expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea. His admirers may well be disappointed on both counts, however.

Short of threatening to embargo China’s increasingly militarised bases in the South China Sea—or even outright conflict—there isn’t much the Trump regime can do to change Chinese policy. Whether key Trump advisors like the maverick trade economist Peter Navarro recognise it or not, the reality is that the two countries’ economies are so interdependent that any radical policy change could do enormous damage to both sides.

The other factor that makes Chinese policy non-negotiable comes from China itself. Xi has been instrumental in ramping up the nationalist rhetoric in China to a point where restoring China’s greatness is a universally supported point of national honour. It is impossible for Xi to back away from China’s increasingly assertive foreign policies without losing face and possibly triggering a domestic political crisis.

This may not stop the self-described dealmaker-in-chief from trying to pressure China into doing what Trump wants, of course. We should not expect a man who takes a famously transactional approach to foreign policy to do anything else. This is one reason why Xi Jinping must be approaching this meeting with a degree of foreboding. The one thing that Xi will not want to risk is public humiliation, and yet this cannot be entirely discounted.

It is not only that Trump is unpredictable, boorish and thin-skinned that makes him difficult to deal with and read. His being a diplomatic and strategic neophyte means that he may not play by, or even recognise, the ‘rules’ of international diplomacy. Indeed, the great irony of the current situation is that it is Xi who is the champion of the status quo, while Trump is a revisionist wrecking ball seemingly intent of tearing down an international order that was largely an American creation.

As if all of this were not enough to justify Trump’s prediction of a “difficult” first meeting, the spectral presence of North Korea’s even less predictable Kim Jong-un is likely to cast a long shadow over proceedings. In yet another example of Trump’s extravagant rhetoric he has assured his supporters that no options are off the table when it comes to dealing with the threat posed by the world’s most consequential rogue state.

This poses a nightmarish set of options for China. Should Xi allow himself to be bullied into trying to bring China’s supposed ally to heel? Even if Xi thought that this was a good idea as some sort of ‘grand bargain’ between the US and China, does China actually have the diplomatic or economic leverage to make Kim fall in line?

Probably not. While China might be tired of the antics of its erratic ally, the prospect of a powerful reunited Korea, possibly with American bases on its doorstep, can’t be an attractive prospect for Beijing’s strategic thinkers, who are obsessively preoccupied with American hegemony at the best of times.

If China proves unwilling or unable to influence North Korea, the key question will be the Trump administration’s response. Is all the sabre rattling simply a way of piling pressure on China to help resolve the crisis or does the Trump administration mean what it says about resolving this issue once and for all?

If the military option really is being considered, we must hope at the very least that the US is confident that China won’t get involved. If China did feel compelled to support its neighbour, all bets would be off. All attempts at forecasting the consequences are futile.  Even if the US is given a nod and a wink to act unilaterally, there is no certainty that it could achieve its strategic aims without unleashing a massively costly conflict that could cause millions of deaths and wreck the global economy.

This all sounds alarmist and unlikely, no doubt, but we need to remember two things. First, Donald Trump has already overturned the conventional wisdom about America’s role in the international system and the way it pursues its increasingly instrumental and nationalistic foreign policies. Second, we have been down the unilateralist road before.

George W. Bush also thought he could use American power to reshape the world to suit America’s perceived national interests. We continue to live with the consequences of that monumentally misguided belief. A similar intervention by Trump in North Korea would make the invasion of Iraq look judicious and well intentioned.

Remarkably enough, we must hope that China’s unelected, authoritarian leader can exercise a sobering influence on his democratically elected counterpart—and not just over North Korea. The stability and future of the global economy are also in the balance. Xi looks like a potentially stabilising force there, too. Interesting times, indeed.

Mark Beeson is the Australian Institute of International Affairs’ research chair and professor of political science and international relations at the University of Western Australia.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.