During his recent trip to Beijing, American President Donald Trump gave a precious gift to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping – a beautiful diplomatic victory.
The gift was precious not only for President Xi, but also for his die-hard fans and the Chinese media. Trump praised Xi as “highly respected” and admitted that China has emerged as a global power under his leadership. The visiting US leader also expressed hope that President Xi’s pro-active moves could resolve the ‘North Korea’ crisis. Later, the Chinese media declared that the Trump-Xi meeting set a “new blueprint” for handling Sino-American relations and differences.
The international community is well aware of the fact that China and North Korea are ‘friendly’ nations. What is noticeable is that President Trump didn’t hesitate to highlight the ‘un-discussed’ side of bilateral relations. That’s why he (indirectly) admitted that the US, too, is dependent on China as far as the ‘North Korea’ issue is concerned. Trump made his visit to Beijing a historic one by openly giving an “upper-hand” to China. His gesture was well appreciated by the Chinese media, although the American media considered their president’s move as a ‘huge diplomatic blunder’.

There has always been a direct conflict between the American and Chinese interests over some serious economic issues, and the US presidents have always raised those issues during bilateral talks. In fact, they not only raised those issues, but also put too much emphasis on them. This time, President Trump discussed different aspects of bilateral trade ties with President Xi, but didn’t make any comment on whether he would encourage American companies to invest in China. The idea was to show that it was not such an important issue which should be discussed by the two heads of the state.
Ahead of the US Presidential Election in 2016, Trump had accused China of destroying the American economy. In the last 12 months, the political scenario in the US has changed. But, it’s not that he ‘forgave’ China without calculating his next moves.
Just before he left Washington for a 12-day five-nation tour of Asia, his supporters, critics and Republican colleagues had advised President Trump to say something about China’s human rights violations. Especially after the recent death of Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, it became necessary for the world’s second largest democracy to slam the Asian giant. However, Trump rejected the advice as he didn’t want to embarrass the top political leadership in Beijing. China, too, reciprocated well. In June, the American president upset Beijing by announcing that the US would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. But, President Xi did not raise the issue during his meeting with Trump.

Forget about diplomacy, the understanding between the two leaders was excellent in Beijing. And we should appreciate President Trump for that. The message Trump wanted to convey to China is: I will serve the US interests and Xi will serve the global interests. Perhaps, this is his new diplomatic move. It’s obvious that such a move will make President Xi ‘happy’, but it’s not good for democratic principles or ideals.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das