U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump greet Chinese President Xi Jinping and first lady of China Peng Liyuan at the White House on Friday.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Charles Burton is a former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing, a senior fellow at Sinopsis.cz, a China-focused think tank based in Prague, and author of The Beaver and the Dragon: How China Out-Manoeuvred Canada’s Diplomacy, Security and Sovereignty.
Behind the glittering banquets and state visit grandeur that Donald Trump lavished upon Xi Jinping during the Chinese President’s 72-hour visit to Washington was the subtext that both men are threatened by severe crises of confidence in their own countries.
No diplomatic breakthroughs or significant collaborative advances were going to come from this summit between two intense rivals, who are both seeing their complex schemes for global supremacy distracted by maintaining control at home.
In dodging accountability for the summit’s measly results, both leaders can be expected to blame the other but also create distractions that relegate domestic critics to the sidelines.
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Beijing unleashed a huge diversion just two days before Mr. Xi left for Washington, expelling Zhang Youxia from the Communist Party – essentially announcing that a verdict has been determined – even though his trial hasn’t yet been held. China’s former top military commander was placed under investigation in January for allegedly accepting “exceptionally large bribes” and being disloyal by having “formed cliques” of military officers. The phrasing implies Beijing suspects a faction was being formed to oust Mr. Xi.
Besides keeping an eye on his military, Mr. Xi also faces dangerously festering public anger over China’s stumbling economy, and persistent questions about his own physical stamina. Being unable to entrench China’s dominance at the recent BRICS summit in New Delhi dealt a blow to his image in China, and he arrived in Washington a beleaguered figure needing to dispel any doubts that he is a force to be reckoned with.
Fabricating or exaggerating diplomatic friction with the West is one way to focus Chinese citizens away from internal instability and faltering policy, and Beijing made clear in its pre-summit media commentary that talks in Washington would be about trade, not topics like human rights, or China’s closed political system.
On the topic of AI, neither leader seems fazed by stark warnings from the world’s tech leaders that the technology is developing too fast to be stopped from threatening humanity. Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump are more obsessed with winning AI hegemony, come hell or high water. This does not bode well for the rest of us.
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While the U.S. was expected to have pressed China to fulfill its promises to export rare earths to American high-tech manufacturers and import more U.S. agricultural commodities, Mr. Trump’s own urgencies are more about his political survival.
To reverse his plummeting approval ratings among Americans and avoid a GOP midterm collapse, Mr. Trump desperately needs China to help resolve the Iran fiasco, restore global oil shipments from the Middle East and get Russia and Ukraine to stop bombing each other’s refineries, which is driving up diesel prices, infuriating voters and threatening the Republicans’ majority this fall.
The only way Mr. Trump could get Mr. Xi to weaken support for strategic allies Russia and Iran would be in exchange for a promise from Mr. Trump to stop supporting – through arms sales – the defence of democratic Taiwan against Chinese annexation. But many influential Republicans are diehard Taiwan supporters, so it is unlikely he could deliver this to Mr. Xi.
And whither Canada?
Even though he was already on the U.S. east coast, Mr. Xi did not attend the UN General Assembly in New York, nor is a stop in Canada on his way home from Washington scheduled.
This could be related to his health; he did have to cancel on a BRICS banquet earlier this month and so he may not be physically able to maintain the punishing schedule of a younger leader.
Or it may reflect that Mr. Xi wants to distance himself from the UN’s principles of international law and the equal sovereignty of states.
But it also sends a strong message to Canada, too.
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It was just nine months ago Prime Minister Mark Carney signed an agreement for Canada to become a “strategic partner” of China and adopt a new approach of “constructive engagement.” This means Canada is less likely to cross the diplomatic “red lines” of criticism of China’s Taiwan policy, human rights, China’s political system and China’s “right to development” (i.e. not stopping PRC acquisition of military technologies).
Mr. Xi seems prepared to go slow with Canada to avoid irritating China-U.S. relations.
It seems we are no longer considered very important to China. If we don’t do what China wants from us, we can expect the Chinese arbitrary tariffs on canola meal and other farm products to be reimposed when the agreement to reduce them hits its end date of Dec. 31.