Is Xi feeling stronger than Trump? |
U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in April in what was to be a closely watched engagement between the world’s two largest economies. Instead, the Israeli and American campaign in Iran forced a postponement, injecting fresh uncertainty into an already unpredictable relationship between the two superpowers.
Now rescheduled for mid-May, the meeting will take place under dramatically changed circumstances, fundamentally reshaped by the White House’s Iran gambit and its ripple effects across global markets, security dynamics and alliances.
Pundits will be debating whether Trump will travel to Beijing in a stronger or weaker position. Some will argue that Trump has created an advantage in his dealings with Xi by disrupting Iranian oil supplies to China, demonstrating a willingness to follow through on his threat to use U.S. military force and behaving undeterred by domestic political pressures. Others will claim that he has fractured his base, depleted military resources and disrupted security priorities, all while undermining America’s relationship with its allies.
Beijing might feel it is in a position it does not like to be in — reaction mode. But in the long run, it retains a more stable footing to outmaneuver Washington over time.
The global strategic shock that is the Iran war has disrupted the trajectory of geopolitics and undermined the assumptions upon which governments based their strategies.
As an authoritarian government that administers a country with more than a billion people, the Chinese Communist Party-led China is particularly vulnerable to these shocks. The Xi government prefers stability to carry out its designed policies and keep its economy stable enough to ward off dissent and project a sense of national strength at home and abroad. The fundamental premises for those policies are now under threat, with the Iran war disrupting global markets, energy resources and security architectures.
Chinese state media outlets like Xinhua and the Global Times have already acknowledged the strain on oil markets and logistics, both of which are central to China’s export-led economy. More than half of China’s oil supply is imported from the Middle East, and the disruptions to oil flows, as well as the sharp increase in crude oil prices has second- and third-order consequences for Chinese shipping and manufacturing. Further, impacts to maritime transit and insurance prices for vessels have notable consequences for China’s international trade designs.
The Xi administration is thus forced to react, which means it must now mobilize its machinery of government to compensate for rapid changes in the strategic environment.
Among these changes is a White House that is operating in ways increasingly untethered from its original political moorings. What was championed as an “America First” administration that promised no new foreign wars has become a vehicle for unabashed regime change efforts abroad. When facing criticism even from its “Make America Great Again” base, the Trump White House has........