While President Trump was locked in a war of words with the leader of Colombia on the military deportation of migrants, China’s ambassador to Colombia declared that the relations between Beijing and Bogotá were at their “best moment” in decades.
Zhu Jingyang, the ambassador, said later that it was a coincidence that he has published his comment on social networks last week, a day after Trump said he would slapped tariffs against Colombia. But the public scope suggested that Beijing saw an opportunity to strengthen his hand in the rivalry of high -risk superpowers between China and the United States.
Two weeks after Trump’s second administration, Trump’s aggressive foreign policy “of Trump is promised and danger to Beijing.
The dangers have always been clear: more rates and the risk of a broader commercial war. This weekend, Mr. Trump imposed an additional 10 percent of tariffs on goods imported from China, saying that tariffs were a response to China’s failure to stop fentanyl exports. It could respond any reprisals of China with even higher levies.
But even when Beijing calculates the impact of tariffs on China’s weak economy, he is surely also taking stock of the openings that Trump’s other movements are giving China.
Trump has moved American allies and partners like Canada and Mexico by imposing pronounced tariffs on their exports. The United States Global Authority has weakened by reducing foreign aid and withdrawing from the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, a UN climate pact.
If Trump’s second term marks the sun’s sunset, analysts say that China will surely take the opportunity to try to remodel the world in their favor. Beijing, who for a long time accused Washington of using his domain to contain the rise of China, has tried to boost a wedge between the United States and its allies, including the European Union, Japan and Australia.
“The Chinese are aware of the damage that Trump has caused and is making credibility and influence worldwide. In fact, it is developing faster than Beijing expected, ”he said Evan S. MedeirosProfessor of Asian Studies at the University of Georgetown who served as Asia Advisor of President Barack Obama.
Trump’s threats to take the Panama and Greenland channel, as well as the Annex of Canada, since State 51 of the United States could normalize a world order in which you can do the right thing. That is an approach that is familiar to Beijing, even if Chinese officials rhetorically hold that hegemony or expansion will never seek.
If the strong armed ones of the United States Panama on their crucial river route, or forces Denmark to renounce the territory rich in Greenland resources, send a signal to China that when it comes to their own claims to the Autonomous Island of Taiwan and Taiwan And much of the South China Sea, coercion triumphs over cooperation.
“China was certainly never going to give up Taiwan or the South China Sea, but with President Trump doing what he is doing, China is even more determined to safeguard their interests there, that’s safe,” said Henry Huiyao Wang, president of the center. For China and globalization in Beijing.
Mr. Wang said that China has been encouraged by the first two weeks of the new administration despite the tariffs and the appointment of aggressive advisors such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the national security advisor.
Instead of getting aggressively to face China, Trump has appeared as someone willing to negotiate and potentially reach an agreement with Xi Jinping, leader of China. Trump has raised the idea of linking tariffs to Tiktok’s destination, who has said he should be half -owned by an American company.
Another potential area to make an agreement is Ukraine. Trump has said that China should help end Russia’s war in the country of Eastern Europe. China, like the largest provider of economic and material support in Russia, could press President Vladimir V. Putin to reach the negotiating table.
“Trump wants China’s help to end the war in Ukraine,” said Wang. “China is one of the best partners to do that.”
But with so many interests in competition, cooperation would be difficult. China has avoided criticizing the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, for example, assuming the position that Russia has the right to protect its national security. Ukraine will not accept China as a peace corridor due to China’s pro-ruse position, said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. Putin, on the other hand, will not want to seem subordinate to China, said, while Trump does not have “real stomach” to see China praised for playing an important role.
On the issue of rates, Beijing has to decide whether to afford to climb a commercial war with the United States. On Sunday, he promised to respond to Mr. Trump’s rates presenting a case before the World Trade Organization and with the countermeasures that will be specified later.
Beijing could return the tariffs. A more drastic approach would be for China to participate in the “supply chains war”: stop shipping to the United States of critical materials and equipment for the US industry. At the beginning of December, China arrested export to the United States of minerals such as antimony and gallium, which are necessary to manufacture some semiconductors.
The risk for China is that a commercial war would be more harmful to itself than for the United States. Exports and factor construction to make them are among the few strengths now in China’s economy. As a result, China’s commercial surplus, the amount for which its exports exceeded imports, reached almost $ 1 billion last year.
China has also not said how to respond to a potentially more reaching provision in the small print of the executive order of Mr. Trump on Saturday: the elimination of tax free management for packages worth up to $ 800 per day for each American. Factories throughout China have changed in recent years to electronic commerce shipments directly to US homes, to avoid the many tariffs collected in clothing and other goods that are imported and sold through US stores.
In the race for the global influence, some argue that the Trump administration movement to freeze most foreign aid, which has interrupted help programs worldwide, has already benefited China.
In regions such as Southeast Asia, where attitudes towards the United States have hardened due to Washington’s support to Israel in the Gaza War, the detention in the funds has raised questions about US reliability.
“China does not need to do anything in the meantime and, nevertheless, in some way, Net -net, resembles the good guy in all this,” said Jeremy Chan, China’s senior analyst in the Eurasia group.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, defended the importance of soft power for the position of the United States.
“If you don’t get involved in the world and you don’t have programs in Africa, where China is trying to buy the entire continent, we are making a mistake,” he said last month.
