Former President Trump and his top foreign policy advisers are warning Chinese President Xi Jinping, threatening a more aggressive US policy toward China as Trump appears increasingly likely to return to the White House.
There is bipartisan support in Washington for a tough U.S. approach toward China, but former Trump officials, likely to serve in a second administration, are advocating greater U.S. military concentration in Asia and slapping tariffs on Chinese imports. .
“There is no such thing as an accidental war,” Matt Pottinger, Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, said in a foreign policy speech Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation.
“Washington’s fixation on unintentional conflicts and hotlines may have emboldened Beijing to adopt more aggressive behavior.”
And Pottinger called for an increase in the US defense budget by $800 billion – arguing that it is a necessity for the US to help Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia and deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
“It will be much cheaper for us to deter in several theaters simultaneously, than to deter very well in one theater but accept major military defeats in other areas, because it is the same enemy,” he said.
Trump’s last national security adviser, Robert O’Brien,he requested “deploy the entire Marine Corps to the Pacific,” increase missile defenses and fighter fleets, and move a naval aircraft carrier from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Former senior administration officials also advocate a Trump 2.0 economic policy toward China that would include 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods entering the U.S. and increase restrictions on technology exports to China.
Trump has long spoken tough on China, although he has occasionally expressed admiration for Xi’s strength as its leader.
“China will own us if you continue to allow them to do what they are doing to us as a country. They’re killing us as a country, Joe, and you can’t let that happen,” Trump said during last week’s CNN debate. “You are destroying our country.”
There is an ongoing debate over which president Beijing prefers, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program.
But Biden’s focus on stability and communication with Beijing is probably more appealing than Trump’s unpredictability.
“I think for a while the Chinese thought, ‘Oh, Trump is transactional, we can just make a deal with him.’ I think they’re less confident now that they could do it. And I think they want more stability,” she said.
Patricia Kim, an expert on Chinese foreign policy and U.S.-China relations with the Brookings Institution, said China faces a “wild card” with Trump and predictably tough policies under Biden.
“What I have heard from Chinese interlocutors is that, with the Biden administration, they are concerned that Biden will continue his policy of strong economic competition with China. They have seen how effective it has been in terms of bringing together allies and partners to deal with the challenges posed to China and can expect that to continue,” she said.
“Trump campaign advisers talk very tough, but we also don’t know exactly what kind of policies President Trump might prefer.”
Trump has been less committed than Biden to helping Taiwan fend off potential Chinese military aggression, which China likely appreciates. But a chorus of former senior Trump officials see U.S. support for Taiwan as a priority for American national security and advocate continued close cooperation with Asian countries on the front lines of Chinese aggression.
Pottinger responded to recent clashes between Chinese sailors and Philippine naval forces — where the Chinese coast guard used axes and knives to attack Philippine inflatable boats — as part of a larger effort to discredit U.S. allies in the Pacific and test the limits of America’s response. The US and the Philippines have a mutual defense treaty.
“It’s a dress rehearsal for Taiwan,” Pottinger said. “What they are doing is trying to demonstrate that they can create a feeling of futility and discredit the idea that the United States will help, not just the Philippines, but, by extension, Taiwan.”
Another priority area for both Biden and Trump is to pressure Beijing to control the export of chemical precursors to fentanyl, the drug fueling the U.S. overdose epidemic.
Pottinger called Beijing’s alleged subsidization of Chinese pharmaceutical companies that produce these chemicals a “form of chemical warfare against the United States.”
Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on anti-narcotics policy, called Pottinger’s statement “braggadocio.”
But she acknowledged that China has relaxed commitments Xi made to Biden after a November summit in Woodside, California, to crack down on fentanyl precursors, and said flows of those substances appear to be increasing.
Still, she described the Biden administration’s diplomacy with China as “skillful” and highlighted remarks by Secretary of State Antony Blinken who, while calling on Beijing to do more, noted that there had been “progress.”
“We have to see over time whether this is sustained and whether it makes a difference,” Blinken said during an event at Brookings on Monday.
Felbab-Brown said China subordinates counternarcotics cooperation to its broader geopolitical goals, but also sees it as a key form of leverage with partners.
In 2019, she noted that China agreed to add all fentanyl-related substances to its list of controlled substances in the expectation that Trump would lift some economic tariffs. He didn’t move forward and later lost the presidential election.
In 2022, China formally suspended counternarcotics cooperation with the Biden administration as punishment for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan in August of that year.
“The countries with which it maintains hostile relations, with which it seeks to punish, denies cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking and in law enforcement,” said Felbab-Brown. “With the countries it wishes to court, or wishes to have friendly relations with, it expands cooperation in law enforcement and the fight against drug trafficking.”
China may view Biden as the “lesser of two evils,” said Glaser of the German Marshall Fund, but Beijing likely sees benefits in Trump’s antagonism toward allies and partners — particularly in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
“The Chinese see Europe as something at stake and they want Europe to be separated, to some extent, from the United States,” she said.
Chinese state media and political commentators satirized Biden and Trump’s debate to no end — reportedly avoiding signaling a preference for either candidate but seizing the moment to reinforce their narrative of a weak US embroiled in infighting.
“I think the Chinese, in terms of their own propaganda, see the best way to play the game is to portray the United States as incapable of putting forward a leader who should be respected by the world,” Glaser said. “And that, therefore, the rest of the world should prepare to not depend on the United States.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
