China positions itself to exploit 'America First'

Analysis

The crucial context for Beijing's response to Trump's election and subsequent behaviour is the five-yearly Party Congress late this year, which places a premium on stability (see CHINA: Leadership reshuffle will steer China's path - June 29, 2016).

Trump's post-election statements and appointments confirmed Beijing's fears, making an already tense relationship under the previous US administration even more so and raising the stakes for Xi in the months leading up to the Congress.

Taiwan tension

Trump's raising of the Taiwan issue in December caught China off guard (see TAIWAN: Trump risks serious rift with China - December 16, 2016). Trump's reaffirmation of the one-China policy yesterday provides some reassurance, yet he has displayed a cavalier disregard for Beijing's most sensitive concerns -- unity and sovereignty -- that Beijing fears he could extend to other issues, foremost among them Tibet and Xinjiang.

Should the White House receive the Dalai Lama, for instance, China's response is likely to be indirect but severe, as when following Trump's telephone call with Taiwan's president, it voted with Russia against a UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in Aleppo.

With relations already tense between Beijing and the independence-leaning government now in office in Taipei, hawks in China will clamour to test Trump's commitment. Among their options are confiscation of Taiwanese fishing vessels, displays of weaponry, overflights, missile tests and naval operations beyond the first line of islands.

A revision to China's Anti-Secession Law is reportedly also under discussion, which would signal stronger commitment to military action against Taiwanese independence.

Unsettled allies

Trump has sent inadvertent signals to nationalists in the Chinese military and other agencies. During his election campaign he implied that US allies Japan and South Korea are free-riders on US security guarantees and predators on US business.

Visits to Seoul and Tokyo by defence secretary James Mattis earlier this month give the allies some reassurance, but even here the fact that Trump appears to be delegating the matter entirely to Mattis could be read as evidence that he himself does not accord these alliances high priority.

Meanwhile, Trump's meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (the second of which takes place today) seem to betray insecurity on the Japanese side, something Trump's unannounced decision to telephone Xi immediately prior to the meeting will aggravate. Moreover, the summit looks set to highlight real economic frictions between the allies.

South Sea caution

Chinese decision makers are unlikely to take Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's inaugural tough words on China's island-building activities at face value.

While hardliners may well argue for more military hardware on islands and atolls, Beijing is more likely to employ flexible diplomatic language and adopt a long-term view, restraining from unilateral military moves and focusing on gaining the tacit consent of strategic partners. After all, China too benefits from freedom of navigation, the ostensible basis of the US presence.

With the Scarborough Shoal dispute frozen, the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte provides a pro-China line in South-east Asia, as to a lesser extent does Malaysia, isolating presumed US clients such as Singapore.

Expanding Beijing's influence regionally, such a strategy reduces US dominance without risking inviting more US military responses such as larger or more frequent freedom-of-navigation patrols. Beijing's latest white paper on China's Asia Pacific strategy shows such thinking with a conciliatory tone about 'respecting the status quo' (see CHINA: Beijing seeks to promote security cooperation - January 18, 2017).

North Korea initiative

Trump's tweets on the North Korean impasse recycle US mantras over the past decade that China must solve it, if not jointly then unilaterally. Having already resumed some aid to North Korea in response to the planned deployment of the US THAAD missile defence system in South Korea (see CHINA: Sanctioning Seoul over THAAD may work - January 10, 2017), China will now try to shift responsibility for reducing tension on the peninsula to Washington and its allies.

Beijing's new charm offensive

Trump's seemingly impulsive disparaging of the global status quo since his election has enabled and emboldened China's global leadership ambitions.

Beijing feels it has been freed from the ideological pressure it faced from the 'universal values' narrative over the decades and handed the chance and the right to reshape the world (see CHINA: 'China model' confronts Western orthodoxy - September 20, 2013).

Elements of an upgraded international charm offensive include Xi's first appearance at the World Economic Forum at Davos on January 17, and the Belt and Road Summit scheduled in Beijing in May.

Beijing offers few details as to the specific changes implied by its desire to step into the global leader's shoes. Much of China's behaviour is at odds with the needs of global leadership -- its treatment of foreign investors, its frequent scapegoating of 'foreign forces', its obvious difficulties in judging how others perceive it, its emphasis on its own uniqueness and its promotion of 'cyber sovereignty' (a euphemism for internet censorship and surveillance). On the other hand, its commitment to combating climate change is real and well-established.

In the wake of Trump's inauguration, and the damage done to his country's image by his slogan 'America First', so many opportunities present themselves that Beijing will prefer to make pledges and friends first and worry about details later.

China's sense of opportunity is unusually well-grounded. Western-led institutions and their supporting values have been dealt a severe shock. Trump's election, particularly so soon after the Brexit vote, seems to bear out Beijing's claims about Western hypocrisy and decline.

Net gain

Beijing is concerned about the pain Trump's government may inflict on China through its policies on trade, investment, Taiwan and the South China Sea, and its effect on the behaviour of Japan. It is also uncertain how far Washington will become a rival for strategic partnership with Moscow.

However, Beijing still expects net benefit from Trump's election in the long run. It knows that Trump's time in office is finite, and believes that the damage he does to the United States and to Washington's standing in the world will endure after he is gone.