Beyond Tariff Truce, China Readies for a Rocky Time With U.S.

Just as the United States and China take measures to control their commercial war, Beijing is preparing for a broader rivalry with Washington to continue. For China, that means that it is unlikely that your search for economic and diplomatic opportunities in Soft Asia its difficult line in its regional territorial claims and its military competence.

Both parties have temporarily agreed Cut surprisingly high tariffs that had imposed on the goods of the other. But the tariff truce will not relieve other complaints that Beijing has with Washington, as on a vote of the pentagon of changing military forces to Asia and the Pacific, and the continuous efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technology.

The decrease in tariffs can open the way to a call, and a summit, between President Trump’s president and the main leader of China, Xi Jinping. But Trump’s high tariffs have already weakened cautious hopes in Beijing that Mr. XI could appeal to Mr. Trump’s merchant, experts said who have spoken with Chinese officials and policy advisors. Although Beijing will strongly seek opportunities in conversations with the Trump administration, it will accelerate for a possible outbreak of tensions that repeat the pattern of the duration of relationships, the first term of Trump.

“I think Beijing’s opinion validates that it was correct to have a dark vision of the intentions of the United States, and prepare for the possible commercial war with the policies that has followed in the years elapsed since the First Commercial War” that Vimbre the first mandate of Mr. Trump, said Jonathan Czin, the president of Michael H. Armacost in foreign policy studies in the Brookings institution in the central intelligence agency that analyzed Chinese policy in Chinese politics.

“My suspicion is that Beijing sees this as a tactical retreat from the United States instead of a more fundamental change in the hostility towards the Chinese Communist Party,” Czin said about the pause of the rate agreed in Geneva.

President Trump’s tariffs about much of the world have given Mr. XI the opportunity to present China as a friendly and reliable alternative, a topic that promoted a recent visit to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia and meetings this week with Latin American leaders.

But China’s emerging approach for Trump’s era also includes flexing his power: basically, they tell other governments, especially in Asia, do not expect Beijing to retain regional statements and ambitions.

The same day that Washington and Beijing announced their truce on tariffs, a document of establishment of Chinese government policies warned that “external forces” raised “growing threats to China’s border regions, border areas and safety in the Araes.”

“The Asia-Pacific region has become a focus of response between the main powers,” said the White Chinese security paper on Monday. “Certain countries have been strengthening their military alliances in the Pacific Asia, touring regional partners, forming” exclusive “cliques”, he said, in a reference to the United States and their partners.

“Of course, he will continue trying to deliver the total commercial policy in Washington presenting ITELF as a stability and predictability lighthouse,” said Richard McGregor, a senior member of Oriental Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney in China. “But he will not give up his statements in the multiple sovereign disputes he has with his maritime neighbors.”

Earlier this month, a Chinese coastal guard helicopter flew to the airspace near the islands in dispute also claimed, and controlled, by Japan, an escalation in the long -standing friction about the islands, called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. China said it was an answer to a provocative flight over the islands by a Japanese plane.

This month also, China’s coast guard landed in Sandy Cay, a sandstone in the disputed sea of ​​southern China that is also claimed by the Philippines. Its action occurred days before the United States and the Philippines began military military exercises in the Philippines.

Above all, the Chinese government remains nervous about Taiwan, democratically governed island that Beijing affirms as its territory. In early April, the popular liberation army carried out exercises around Taiwan to practice imposing a blockade.

China’s leaders did not see contradiction in their combination of sweet talks and actions of Hardball, said Julian Gewirtz, a former head of China’s policy at the door of the White House and the State Department of the Biden Administration.

“They believe that it is precisely the time to establish the relationship with the residents of China, particularly those who worry about too close to Washington, in more advantageous terms,” ​​Mr. Mr. said Gewirtz. “It is a time when they believe that the ability of these states to retreat is diminished and where China’s leaders can say ‘we can, sacrifice the economic and technological agreements and other incentives. But we can also continue to press our territorial statements.’ And those two things coexist very comfortably in their minds.

The cracks have opened between the United States and many traditional allies, especially in Europe. But until now, Mr. Trump’s policies have not shaken the traditional alliances of the United States in Asia and the Pacific in the same degree. Marco Rubio attended a meeting with Foreign Ministers of India, Japan and Australia on his first full day as Secretary of State. Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba or Japan issued a joint statement that mentioned their shared conerns about Chinese threats to Taiwan.

“Here there is continuity in this region, with Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia,” said Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense of the security issues of the Indo-Pacific under President Biden, on ties of Alianza Bajo. Triumph.

“Both parties, the United States and its Asian partners, are trying to sit their defense and security relationship of the commercial and tariff environment,” said Mr. Ratner, now director of the Marathon initiative, a group that studies American competition with China and other rivals. “The challenge now for Beijing is that the majority of the United States allies see China as their main national security threat.”

China has encouraged the dismantling of the office that supervises the voice of America and other agencies, democracy and human rights of Mr. Trump’s promotion.

But Mr. XI and other Chinese leaders had a dim vision of the intentions of the United States long before Trump entered politics. And in Mr. Trump’s first mandate, Bonhomie shows between him and Mr. Xi Cool Way to a commercial war, then an agreement he hesitated, with Washington accusing China or non -honorary on his side of the bargain. There was also acrimony over the origins of Covid, US controls on technology exports and military objectives on each side.

This time, the mutual setback in tariffs will not be deep deep between China and the United States, said Shen Dingli, a scholar of international relations in Shanghai. If both parties continue again in their commercial disputes, relationships can improve for a year or two, but they are likely to get worse again, Mr. Shen said: “Because we have too many points of disagreement.”