Beijing could do without Trump’s unpredictability on steroids

For an Australian used to government officials panicking about a Donald Trump victory in November, it has been discordant to hear commentary about Beijing’s hopes to see the former president back in the White House.

This is an idea I have heard often, mainly in the US and Europe – that Chinese leaders see huge advantages in a Trump victory in November’s presidential election.

The reasoning for the Chinese preferring Trump is sound enough. A Trump win represents decline, dilapidation and chaos in the world’s most powerful democracy, and thus helps Beijing in two ways.

First, it would turn the US inwards and diminish its ability to project power and support allies at the very moment that Beijing is challenging Washington head-on, especially in Asia.

Second, Trumpian chaos hurts the global brand of democracy generally and bolsters China’s persistent advocacy for an alternative to the US-built and led world order.

But talk to officials and scholars on the ground in China, and a more nuanced analysis emerges.

In China, to be sure, there is not a single view about the US election, even as the leadership anxiously awaits the outcome. As to what Xi Jinping himself thinks, one can only speculate.

But Chinese officials and scholars, in private conversations over many months, are exceptionally wary of a Trump victory.

Trump’s own secretaries of defence and chiefs-of-staff often had no idea what decisions he might take. How could the Chinese possibly know?

The Chinese see Trump as corrupt, transactional and grotesquely susceptible to flattery, much like his many American critics do. These are all qualities the Chinese thought they could exploit, and indeed they did in the early period of his presidency after he was elected in late 2016.

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, had her China trademark applications for fashion gear fast-tracked by Beijing. A Chinese state bank rented floors in Trump Tower in New York, moving out after he left the White House.

When Trump visited Beijing in 2017, he was hosted by Xi Jinping for dinner in the Forbidden City, an honour not accorded to any prior US president. “I don’t think anybody’s ever been treated better in China ever in their history,” Trump said, and claimed Xi as a friend. “He likes me, I like him.”

The Chinese pulled out all stops for Trump, but their approach didn’t work.

In office, Trump stuck to his bedrock views, that Asian nations running trade surpluses with the US were, by definition, exploiting the US. He didn’t hesitate to take the sorts of actions his predecessors wouldn’t dare to do, to push back.

Trump’s most headline-grabbing announcements were on trade and the imposition of tariffs. But he also let his staff, the likes of Mike Pompeo (secretary of state) and Matt Pottinger (National Security Council), pursue their own tough China agendas.

Conceivably, both men could return in a second Trump administration, and they haven’t changed their spots.

More than anything else, Trump is unpredictable and untethered by professional precedence or commitments he may have made in the past, or even days, hours or minutes before.

Trump’s own secretaries of defence and chiefs-of-staff often had no idea what decisions he might take. How could the Chinese possibly know?

Beijing is executing a very deliberate salami-slicing strategy to gain ascendancy in the region – around Taiwan, in the South China Sea and near the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands, where their navy and militarised coast guard are challenging Japan.

Trump’s noisy unpredictability is anathema to China’s ambitions in this respect. Trump might give up on US friends like Taiwan and Japan. But then again, he might not. Beijing has no idea, and they have good reason to fear the worst.

The idea of a grand bargain between the US and China, brokered by Trump as the self-styled master dealmaker, is as distant as ever. Trump tried that in his first term with North Korea and failed.

There is no reason to think Trump could succeed with China, even if he was of a mind to try. Congress wouldn’t let him get to first base in any case, such is the bipartisan front in the US capital against Beijing.

In public, Chinese scholars steer clear of favouring one candidate over the other. For practical reasons alone, this is wise, as no one can predict with certainty the result in November.

An article in Foreign Affairs, by top academics at Peking University, one of the country’s leading institutions, articulated a core truth about US-China relations and the forthcoming election.

That is, whoever wins, strategic competition between the incumbent and uprising superpowers will continue and likely intensify.

“To Chinese observers, rather than offering alternative approaches, the two major US parties both reflect a general approach to China that has emerged in recent years … that China must now be treated as a major adversary,” they said.

The difference, however, lies both in the temperament of the respective candidates – Trump and the more conventional (as far as we can tell) Kamala Harris – and in the US itself.

Once, the US was a relatively predictable power, and China, unpredictable.

Now the opposite is true. China is predictable. We know what it wants – in Taiwan and the South China Sea and so forth – and we can see it executing those goals daily.

The US, however, is unpredictable. Its commitment to its postwar role and foreign military commitments is up for debate among voters, something Trump correctly diagnosed and brilliantly exploited.

And while the US might be unpredictable, Trump is unpredictability on steroids. Even Beijing could do without that.