Trump increasingly takes aim at a new foe - China

China's President Xi Jinping. Photo / AP file

After 18 months of treating North Korea as the top national security threat, US President Donald Trump has increasingly turned his attention to China, taking a more confrontational approach that experts said shows a risky shift in US policy.

From an escalating trade war to a new defence budget that counters Chinese maritime expansion, the Trump Administration has taken aim at the East Asian power in a contest of wills that has led to a growing consensus in Beijing that the United States is seeking to contain China's rise.

Trump's rhetoric has grown sharper since last year, when he attempted to strike a rapport with his "good friend" President Xi Jinping.

This month, Trump cited the Chinese military as the rationale for creating a new "Space Force" at the Pentagon, and in a tweet today he injected China into the spectre of foreign influence of US elections.

"All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China," the President wrote, without offering evidence of any Chinese conspiracy.

Analysts said the rise in hostility suggests that Trump and his advisers have come to view the communist nation as a malign power and direct competitor and adversary whose expanding influence must be blunted through more extreme countermeasures.

To a degree, it is a view that is shared more widely among Washington foreign policy analysts as Xi has consolidated power and pursued an aggressive agenda of economic growth and territorial expansion.

But analysts said the Trump Administration has yet to articulate a clear strategy to deal with China even as it signals a sharp departure from the approach of previous administrations.

President Barack Obama sought to cooperate with Beijing on major global initiatives, such as the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, as a way to manage China's growth and encourage it to act more responsibly in the international system.

Trump has pulled the United States out of both of those pacts.

"I do not see very many issues this Administration is trying to work with China on," said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The effort to come up with new things where our interests converge has been abandoned. I think this Administration is in agreement that China is a competitor, and the effort here is really focused on how we have a more effective competitive strategy with China."

All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China. But in the end, if we are smart, tough and well prepared, we will get along with everyone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2018

Trump's preoccupation with China was on display at a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Friday. During the hour-long discussion, open to reporters, the President accused China of easing economic pressure on North Korea and of flooding addictive opioids into the United States.

Economic analysts have criticised Trump for sparking a trade war with China by slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum. In the meeting, the President appeared eager to prove he was right to impose tariffs and to paint Beijing as the loser, pointedly asking his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, to update him on China's economic growth.

"Their economy is heading south," Kudlow replied. "I will just say, right now, their economy looks terrible."

Trump had talked tough on China throughout his campaign, but he pulled back after taking office and inviting Xi to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in the northern spring of 2017. The President declined to follow through on threats to label China a "currency manipulator" as he sought to enlist Beijing's help in his international pressure campaign on North Korea.

But the President has soured on Beijing as his bid to force Pyongyang to live up to commitments made with leader Kim Jong Un in a nuclear summit in Singapore has faltered. As Trump's relationship with Kim has appeared to enter an uneasy detente, analysts suggested the President sees China as a convenient political foil to juice his domestic political base.

"Trump is at war with the permanent political class, the opposition party media and basically he's at economic war with China" - Steve Bannon pic.twitter.com/hBBpj3o6l5

— The Beat with Ari Melber on MSNBC 📺 (@TheBeatWithAri) August 18, 2018

There is doubt about whether the strategy is working. Since the northern spring, the world's two largest economies have each put tariffs on US$34 billion worth of goods, with US$16 billion more slated to take effect.

The trade war has sparked anxiety among some US industries and, in June, forced the Trump Administration to announce plans for a US$12 billion bailout to farmers affected by retaliatory Chinese tariffs on soy, corn, wheat and other agricultural products.

A Chinese delegation is scheduled to visit Washington this week for lower-level trade talks.

"The Trump Administration is trying surgery with a chainsaw in making threats and demanding unconditional surrender," said Daniel Russel, an analyst at the Asia Society who served as a top Asia policy official in the Obama Administration.

"The Chinese tell me they see a clear connection between the aggressive push on trade and the language in the National Security Strategy and other documents labelling China, in effect, an enemy."

Pres. Trump asks Attorney General Jeff Sessions to bring a federal lawsuit against certain companies supplying opioids and points to China and Mexico as supporting the ongoing epidemic. https://t.co/TSYHsgZeoR pic.twitter.com/oI02GrAeAp

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 18, 2018

That strategy document, released in December, called China a "revisionist power" that seeks to displace US leadership in Asia and expand the reach of its "state-driven" economic model.

For all of Trump's rhetoric, however, his Administration has not sketched out a convincing strategy to blunt China's expansion, analysts said.

Trump's withdrawal of the United States from potential membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact viewed by the Obama Administration as a bulwark on China, left regional partners uncertain about the Administration's commitment to the region.

Late last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an initial investment of US$113 million in energy, infrastructure and digital commerce as the economic cornerstone of an "Indo-Pacific" strategy, which was interpreted by Washington's foreign policy community as a lackluster attempt by Trump's team to offer an alternative vision.

In soybean country, Trump's trade war with China tests patience and nerves https://t.co/xug0vh4K3o pic.twitter.com/CbIGCDq1sg

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 16, 2018

The investment paled in comparison to China's giant "belt and road" economic programme that is distributing tens of billions of dollars in government-backed infrastructure loans across the region.

In an attempt to soothe the concerns of American business leaders, Matt Pottinger, the senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, emphasised at the US Chamber of Commerce that the initial sum was a starting point to jump-start American private sector investments that China can't match.

"We know there's anxiety about the adjustment that's taking place in US bilateral relationships, maybe one in particular," Pottinger said, referring to China.

"That adjustment is overdue. It's inevitable. What's important now is for the United States and our partners to look forward to the 21st century competition that all of us are facing and that together we will be able to win."