BEIJING — By backing down in a telephone call with China’s president
on his promise to review the status of Taiwan, President Trump may have
averted a confrontation with America’s most powerful rival.
But in doing so, he handed China a victory and sullied his reputation with its leader, Xi Jinping, as a tough negotiator who ought to be feared, analysts said.
“Trump
lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper
tiger,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at
Renmin University of China, in Beijing, and an adviser to China’s State
Council. “This will be interpreted in China as a great success, achieved
by Xi’s approach of dealing with him.”
Mr.
Trump’s reversal on Taiwan is likely to reinforce the views of those in
China who see him as merely the latest American president to come into
office talking tough on China, only to bend eventually to economic
reality and adopt more cooperative policies. That could mean more
difficult negotiations with Beijing on trade, North Korea and other
issues.
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At
the same time, the Chinese leadership will view statements by Mr. Trump
with even greater skepticism. “Even though Trump has said he will
support the ‘One China’ policy, China cannot fully trust him,” said Yan
Xuetong, dean of the school of international relations at Tsinghua
University, in Beijing. “Even his own people don’t trust him.”
China’s
official reaction to the telephone call, in which Mr. Trump affirmed
that America would abide by the longstanding policy, was polite, even
upbeat.
“The
conversation was very cordial,” Lu Kang, the spokesman for the Foreign
Ministry, said at a regular news briefing on Friday. “The One China
principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relations.”
Under that policy, the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
American
leadership was damaged by Mr. Trump staking out a position and then
stepping back, said Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the
Australian National University and the author of “The China Choice,” a
book that argues that the United States should share power in the
Pacific region with China.
“The
Chinese will see him as weak,” Mr. White said of Mr. Trump. “He has
reinforced the impression in Beijing that Trump is not serious about
managing the U.S.-China relationship.”
Mr. Shi said that Beijing had chosen to remain firm and patient with Mr. Trump, and that approach had paid off.
Even
though many other world leaders had spoken to the new American
president by phone since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Mr. Xi had refused
to talk to Mr. Trump until he was sure that the American president
would give what turned out to be a concession — an affirmation of the
One China policy, Mr. Shi said.
Mr.
Trump put himself in a corner by questioning the status of Taiwan, an
issue that the Chinese have regarded as nonnegotiable since President
Jimmy Carter put the One China policy into effect in 1979, Mr. Shi
added.
Some Chinese said Mr. Trump’s decision to walk back on the issue of Taiwan at least lowered the risk of conflict.
“If
he agreed to the One China policy, that means there is no danger of
direct war between China and the United States,” said Mr. Yan of
Tsinghua University. “That fact is very positive.”
When Mr. Trump took a precedent-shattering phone call
from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan in early December, and said a few
days later that he wanted to extract concessions from Beijing in return
for keeping the One China policy, the Chinese government issued “ugly”
statements saying it would not waver on the issue of Taiwan, Mr. Shi
said.
Those statements
came from the Foreign Ministry, which said that “it was out of the
question” to negotiate and that the One China policy was “a core issue”
that involved China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In diplomatic parlance, that meant Taiwan was a rock-bottom issue that Beijing was prepared to fight over.
The
tough statements were intended to recall the time in 1995 when China
tested missiles near Taiwan, prompting President Bill Clinton to
dispatch an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, near China’s
coast.
China
is militarily much stronger today, armed with far more advanced
missiles and a more robust navy that includes one aircraft carrier, with
more on the way.
The
Chinese also decided to flatter Mr. Trump, Mr. Shi said. When the Trump
administration started to make small steps to pave the way for the
phone call with Mr. Xi, China was almost excessive in its response, a
way of trying to reassure Washington without paying any price, Mr. Shi
added.
So
after Mr. Trump sent a letter to the Chinese Embassy in Washington this
week, wishing the Chinese people a “prosperous Year of the Rooster,”
Beijing responded that it was “very happy” to receive the president’s
greetings.
The
American secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, who had pledged to
uphold the One China policy during his confirmation hearings, was at the
White House on Thursday before the call, apparently pointing out the
risks of Mr. Trump’s approach.
“The cost to the U.S. of refusing to recommit to the One China policy was very high, and Trump was persuaded,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In an unusual move, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua posted on Twitter a cheeky quiz on the possible reason Mr. Trump had changed his mind on the One China policy. Twitter is banned in China.
Xinhua
gave four choices, giving prominent play to the options “blackmailing
didn’t work” and “China’s unyielding stance,” and including the
possibility that a visit by Ivanka Trump and her 5-year-old daughter,
Arabella, to the Chinese Embassy’s New Year reception last week had
played a role.
The
tension between Washington and Beijing over Mr. Trump’s attitude toward
Taiwan has reverberated around the Asia-Pacific region, where American
allies have worried since the December phone call with Ms. Tsai that, in
the extreme, there could be armed conflict over Taiwan.
On
Friday, the United States Pacific Command said that a Chinese aircraft
and an American Navy patrol plane had had an “unsafe” encounter over the
South China Sea, The Associated Press reported. A spokesman said that
the “interaction” between a Chinese KJ-200 early warning aircraft and a
Navy P-3C plane took place on Wednesday in international airspace. The
spokesman did not say what was unsafe about the encounter.
That
Mr. Trump appears to have smoothed things out for the moment has
brought relief, but it does not assuage concerns about future dealings
between Mr. Xi and the American president.
Both
the White House and the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the two
leaders wanted to strengthen cooperation. The White House statement said
Beijing wanted to work with Washington on a number of issues, including
trade.
Mr.
Trump has threatened a trade war by raising the possibility of steep
tariffs in response to what he portrays as China’s predatory trade
practices.
Neither
side specified in their statements how they would cooperate, and doubts
remained in the Asia-Pacific region about Mr. Trump’s intentions on a
variety of issues. China values predictability, and one phone call could
not deliver that, analysts said.
“Trump
isn’t attached to any particular policy line with China or anyone
else,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute. “So ‘working together’ could also be dumped
whenever it suits.”
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