It is widely-accepted that Trump’s visit, coming on the heels of the 19th Party Congress, afforded the U.S. administration an opportune moment to shape bilateral cooperation between the United States and China on several issues of mutual interest. It is equally held that Trump’s state visit reflected the good will between Trump and Xi. As it is evident that despite the issues remaining between the two great powers, they were effectively moderated by the personal relations forged between the presidents of the two great powers. For example, since Trump took office, Xi and Trump have maintained the regular contacts from their direct calls to the meetings at the summits globally. Chinese media acclaims that Xi-Trump meeting at Mar-a-Lago as the benchmark of the bilateral relations.
However, the controversies are focused on how much the progresseswere made on specific policies. For example, some argued that the administration failed to capitalize on driving the relationship forward by proposing new ideas and making more requests, including the lack of concrete actions taken to mitigate rising tensions with North Korea, despite the issue being a primary goal of Trump’s visit. Even media highlightedthe importance of head-of-state diplomacy in the U.S.-China relationship and expressed optimism that agreements, such as the $250 billion in trade deals, reflect a promising collaboration. But the trade deficit is still a big issue between the two sides.
Actually, the trade deficit between China and the U.S. has been a primary focus for the Trump administration for a long time. Thusthe U.S. governments’ concentration on trade deficit is wrong economically and self-defeating. Instead, a more productive approach would be to focus on addressing the U.S. business community’s concerns over market access and technology transfer. Historically speaking, the United States should concentrate on re-examining and reinforcing the Bretton Woods system, with the U.S. leading the changes in the Asia-Pacific region. Politically, the disputes over the trade deficit is more a reflection of U. S. domestic anxiety over China’s rapid rise and its decline in economic growth and confidence.
Except trade deficit between the two sides, a majority of the conversation between Xi and Trump focused on rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, since North Korea’s nuclear program is among the most important foreign policy issues currently facing the administration. Given the potential for crisis, peoples around the world expressed their surprise at how little progress was made during the state visit, saying the trip may have resulted in less clarity over U.S. policy toward North Korea. While both sides argued that the ultimate goal is denuclearization, the lack of a substantive roadmap, combined with mixed messages surrounding the U. S. requirements to begin diplomatic negotiations with Pyongyang, indicates the administration lacks a unified strategy. As a solution, it is proposed that a “less for less” approach to initiate diplomatic relations, in which the United States would agree to limit bomber test flights in exchange for North Korea ceasing missile tests over Japan and Korea that came actually from China’s proposal of “dual suspension” indicating that United States and its allies suspend their regular military drills and North Korea would suspend its nuclear and missile tests.
Consider the potential for armed conflict as relations between the United States and North Korea that continue to deteriorate, China has demonstrated its sincere concerns over the issue. Although previous U.S. administrations had rejected any proposals for military action, current President Trump and his high-ranking officials genuinely believe a credible military response. But the real issue is that North Korea’s continued missile development would lead to stronger actions from China. Strategically speaking, China and the United States would move towards greater cooperation which emphases the final denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. That is the red-line uncompromised by China.
Like all other rising great powers, China is concerned with its peaceful rise and the strategic depth around its core security zones. Due to this, President Xi surely discussed with his U.S. counterpart America’s new Indo-Pacific strategy. Although the apparent strategy is inadequate, the United States has failed to fully brief its allies in the Asian-Pacific region on a more thorough policy proposal and long-term vision. When discussing the strategy’s reception in China, President Trump did his best to persuade his counter-part that although the Indo-Pacific strategy is oriented toward the maritime domain, a sensitive issue for China, the ruling elite in Beijing do not currently view the initiative as a containment strategy.
However, it is not easy to perceive the Sino-U.S. relations in such a way. Since the two powers normalized their diplomatic relations in 1978, they have undergone the tremendous vicissitudes from the quasi-allies against the former Soviet Union during the cold war to the solo hegemony of the United States in the post-cold war period. Therefore, the bilateral relationship between China and United states can be divided into two dimensions: the high political dimension and the low political dimension. High political dimensions refers to politics and security concerns, while low political dimensions mean economics. Mean-while, the social relations between China and the United States have been steadily developing. The exchanges in academic, business, tourism and cultural fields have deepened. The attitude of the people between two countries is positive in the general terms. However, the disputes and potential conflicts between China and the United States in the field of high political dimension since the 1990s can’t be ignored. Except the issues discussed above ranging from trade deficit and the Korean nuclear issues, the Taiwan issue has never left from the political agenda of both Beijing and Washington. During the Bush Jr.’s administration, the vague term of “friendemy” was used to indicate the instability of the Sino-U.S. relations. Only after Obama took office, people gradually talked about the relations between the two countries as the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Yet, just not long ago, the Trump’s administration dictated China as a strategic competitor in the world affairs.
Given all analysis above, we can conclude that since China and the United States have been full of uncertainties if not conflicts all ways, the personal friendship or even empathy between the leaders of two countries are not enough to act as the guarantees, though the joint efforts of the two sides can moderate the issues. Although the rapid rising of China’s economics can be facilitating the U.S. domestic production, and Trump’s “U.S. priority” policy would turn more attention to the domestic affairs, it is impossible for the White House to overlook the Asia-Pacific region. This is the reason behind the initial Pacific–India strategy released by the Trump’s administration recently. From the geopolitical point of view, the United States is and remains a superpower globally in the coming decades, therefore, it is naïve to image that the United States would retreat itself to the “isolationism”. Equally as a ruling power, the United States would not give up its established interest and the commitments to its core allies around the world. Consider this reality, the relations between China and the United States will continue to be the most important one in the world, but it takes long time to manage it in a mature and institutionalized way. Briefly, the issues involving the core interest of the two powers, in particular between the ruling power and rising power, are not resolved by the friendship on the personal level, but only on the national and international levels combined.
