Xi Jinping’s reply is a snub to Trump, but inaugural invitation is still a big deal

Imagine the scene on the west side of the U.S. Capitol at noon on January 20.

As Donald Trump swore to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution in the same spot where his supporters rioted four years ago, an extraordinary guest looked on, stunning the former president, military brass and members of Congress Eclipsed.

China’s hard-line leader Xi Jinping is armed to the teeth to withstand the winter cold – and as the Cold War accelerates in the 21st century, nearly everyone on the inaugural podium sees China as an existential threat to America’s superpower dominance.

It’s a dreamy picture because even before sources confirmed on Thursday that Xi Jinping would not attend, it was clear that was not going to happen, despite Trump’s shocking invitation to the Chinese Communist Party leader to attend his second inauguration. He hopes to make a compelling global leadership statement.

Flying Xi across the world would be a huge success for the elected president—a fact that would make the Chinese leader politically unviable. Such a visit would allow the Chinese president to pay tribute to Trump and American strength, which would conflict with his vision of China playing its role as a preeminent global power. At the inauguration, Xi Jinping will be forced to sit and listen to Trump speak, with no control over what the new president may say and no right of reply. Xi’s presence will also be seen as supporting a democratic transfer of power – anathema to autocrats in one-party states obsessed with suppressing individual expression.

Still, even without a positive response, Trump’s invitation to Xi marked a significant development and underscored the president-elect’s confidence and ambition as he wields power ahead of his second term. CNN reports Trump’s team reported that he has also been asking other world leaders if they would like to attend the inauguration – a violation of convention.

It’s reminiscent of Trump’s love of foreign policy, with its fanfare, and his willingness to trample diplomatic norms in unpredictable ways. Xi’s invitation also shows that Trump believes that the strength of his personality alone can be the decisive factor in achieving a diplomatic breakthrough. He is not the only president to take this approach — it rarely works because hostile U.S. adversaries make stubborn choices based on national interests rather than climate.

The president-elect’s invitation to Xi is all the more interesting because he has spent the past few weeks assembling a hawkish foreign policy team that includes his pick for secretary of state, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and the state. Security consultant Florida Representative Mike Waltz believes that China poses a multi-faceted threat to the United States, including the economy, the high seas and even space.

“This is a very interesting move by Trump and very consistent with his approach to unpredictability. I don’t think anyone expected this,” said Lily Mack, associate director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Freeman Chair in China Studies. Lily McElwee said. McElwee said the invitation should be viewed in the context of the sticks and carrots the president-elect is using as he prepares to take over the world’s most important foreign relationship. “It’s a very, very cheap carrot. It’s a symbolic carrot – it disrupts the tone of the relationship a little bit, but it certainly doesn’t harm U.S. interests.

Trump’s engagement with Xi comes amid growing expectations that strained U.S.-China relations will worsen in the incoming administration, with officials determined to build on the tough line taken by the Biden administration. The Biden administration adopted tough policies during Trump’s first term.

The two countries have different opinions on the Taiwan issue. China is increasing cooperation with other U.S. enemies, forming an informal anti-Western axis with Russia, North Korea and Iran. The air forces and navies of the two major Pacific powers often engage in dangerous clashes in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Lawmakers from both parties have accused China of stealing U.S. economic and military secrets and failing to abide by international law and trade rules.

With Trump already threatening to impose steep tariffs on China, his attempt to coax Xi Jinping to Washington seems like a huge contradiction. As foreign governments are confused about how to respond to America’s new president, it begs the question: How seriously should America’s allies and adversaries take his bullying tone and erratic policy shifts? Is the true American approach characterized by his tough officials and policies, or is it more accurately represented by the president-elect’s head-spinning moves that show a passion for deal making and sitting at the negotiating table with the world’s tough-guy leaders? enthusiasm?

Trump’s first big move in relations with China

Trump’s latest strategy may feel confusing — but that doesn’t mean it won’t work.

While Trump’s critics often decry his unpredictability, his impromptu moves could throw rivals off balance and give the United States a potential advantage. For example, any success he has in keeping Xi Jinping away from China, Russia, and North Korea would be a huge foreign policy victory, despite the United States’ other differences with China.

But at the same time, one can fairly question whether his first-term foreign policy delivered lasting results.

Trump’s views on China are particularly puzzling—because he seems to view Beijing’s mercantilist policies as a direct threat to the United States and as having been blackmailing the United States for decades. But he still wants to be friends with Xi. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly stressed that Xi Jinping was tough and smart and that they were friends — seemingly thinking their sincerity meant the Chinese leader might view him similarly.

Trump expressed this contradiction in one sentence during an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC on Thursday. “We’ve been talking and discussing some things and other things with President Xi, other world leaders, and I think we’re going to do a great job on all fronts,” Trump said. But he added: “As a country, we have been Mistreated. From a financial standpoint, we were badly mistreated.

Trump’s habit of undermining hard-line government policies has been evident repeatedly during his first term, particularly with Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korea Dealing with Kim Jong-un and other strongmen. At times, he seemed to take positions just because everyone told him not to.

HR McMaster, one of Trump’s former national security advisers, pointed out in his book “The War with Ourselves” that this is especially obvious in front of Putin. “Like his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump is overconfident in his ability to improve relations with Kremlin autocrats,” McMaster wrote. Trump, a self-proclaimed “deal guru,” believes he can build a good personal relationship with Putin. Trump’s instinctive tendency to think backward has only strengthened his resolve. The fact that most foreign policy experts in Washington advocate a tough approach against the Kremlin only seems to prompt the president to do the opposite.

This contrarian thinking may have prompted Trump to extend an olive branch to Xi Jinping early on. The president-elect is also likely to foresee a new trade deal with Beijing, even if the bilateral agreement in his first term largely evaporated. The phase one trade deal he struck in late 2019 and hailed as “historic” never materialized. Although Trump sharply turned against Xi a few months later over the Covid-19 pandemic that broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan, it is unclear whether Xi intends to fully implement what Trump has called sweeping economic structural reforms and large-scale purchases of American products. Agriculture, energy and manufactured goods. There is no evidence that Xi Jinping has changed his mind.

Trump’s tariff strategy has also been questioned because no one knows whether a president unwilling to hurt voters is prepared to pay the political cost of such an approach. While he insists the tariffs will ultimately cost Beijing billions of dollars, U.S. retailers will pass on higher import prices to consumers — including voters who see Trump as their best hope for easing high grocery prices.

Another question: Does Trump see tariffs as a negotiating tactic or a true act of economic warfare? Many analysts believe his threats to allies such as Canada or the European Union are simply meant to improve his negotiating position. But Washington’s antipathy toward China is so strong that a trade war with Beijing is likely to be more protracted and end in itself.

“With China, we still have a question mark: Is the tariff threat intended as a bargaining chip to reach a deal, or is it intended to achieve some kind of unilateral decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies?” McElwee said.

Beijing appears to be taking Trump seriously. It has spent weeks since Trump’s election preparing tools for retaliation. On Wednesday, it announced an antitrust investigation into U.S. chipmaker Nvidia. On another front in its tech war, China has banned the export of several rare minerals to the United States. China on Thursday pledged to increase its budget deficit, borrow more money and ease monetary policy to safeguard economic growth as it fended off renewed tensions with Trump.

This shows that a trade war could be disastrous for both China and the United States. While tariffs could drive up U.S. prices, they could also dry up profits and exacerbate some of China’s biggest economic vulnerabilities, including overcapacity in industry and sluggish household demand.

As a result, Trump’s unorthodox approach may begin to focus attention on Beijing.

Viewed in this light, Trump’s invitation to the inauguration is like the opening move in a great pan-Pacific game that will help define his second term.

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