Election results mean economic threat, geopolitical
opportunity for Beijing
SHANGHAI—The gray, conservative men who run China have
no love for Hillary Clinton, but at least she was a known entity. In an erratic
Donald Trump they now face both an economic threat and geopolitical opportunity
if, as seems likely, a distracted America pulls back from Asia.
Beijing may believe that Mr. Trump is bluffing when he
threatens sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports; the official media have
portrayed him as more of a clown than a menace.
But it had better brace for the consequences of a
populist revolt that swept him to victory, fueled by anger at the perception
among working-class whites that China has stolen American jobs. Mr. Trump’s
ascendancy to the White House delivers the sharpest blow yet to the forces of
globalization that propelled China’s rise. The world’s most consequential bilateral
relationship now faces an extended period of uncertainty and tension.
The damage to U.S. democracy from an ugly election
campaign—and now a polarized country—underscores the Communist Party’s
propaganda message to the masses that it alone stands between order and chaos.
While American politics are in convulsion, the Chinese leadership projects
stability. Beijing wants a bigger say in how the world is run. Turmoil in
Washington serves that purpose well.
Mr. Trump has promised to rip up America’s trade
agreements; a video documentary by one of his chief advisers on China, the economist
Peter Navarro, opened with a Chinese dagger plunging into America’s heart. In
this view of the world, China is a villain, along with Mexico, responsible for
emptying out U.S. manufacturing cities.
It doesn’t matter that manufacturing jobs are now
fleeing China for lower-cost countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, Mr. Trump
has promised to bring them home.
If he carries out his threat to slap an across-the-board
45% tariff on Chinese imports, expect retaliation against American investors
that will slice into the profits of companies doing well in China, including
General Electric, Boeing and Apple.
Note, too, that trade has long held together the
U.S.-China relationship that is fraying in so many other areas—from how to deal
with the North Korean nuclear threat to China’s aggression in the South China
Sea.
On the geopolitical front, Beijing has reason to cheer
the election result: Mr. Trump has less regard than Mrs. Clinton for America’s
military alliances, which have underpinned U.S. dominance in China’s
neighborhood since World War II—a primacy that Beijing is determined to upend.
His election may well kill off Barack Obama’s signature
foreign-policy initiative, the “pivot” to Asia, which Beijing views as military
containment, an invitation to China to assert more control over what it calls
its “near seas.” Mr. Trump rejects the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive
free-trade deal at the heart of Mr. Obama’s plans for a greater U.S. regional
engagement.
Yet it is the American security guarantee that has kept
the peace in East Asia and allowed the world’s most dynamic region to focus on
growth.
If U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea, who Mr. Trump
portrays as free riders, start doubting U.S. defense commitments, a regional
arms race could ramp up. China’s nightmare is a Japan that loses faith in the
U.S. nuclear umbrella and decides to build its own weapons.
Already, right-wing politicians in South Korea are
advocating an independent nuclear deterrent as Pyongyang accelerates its
nuclear and missile testing.
Pax Americana—the U.S.-led global order—is already
looking shaky in East Asia, precisely because countries worry about the staying
power of country capable of producing this kind of political shock. China’s
authoritarianism is at least predictable. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
has canceled military exercises with the U.S. and is shopping for weapons in
China, as is Malaysia’s leader, Najib Razak, who recently announced the
purchase of at least four Chinese navy ships.
Mrs. Clinton’s blunt diplomatic style grated on Chinese
leaders. As first lady, she berated them over human rights, and as secretary of
state she irritated them again with her lectures on freedom of navigation in
the South China Sea.
Mr. Trump has focused almost exclusively on trade in his
hectoring comments on China. Still, he prides himself on his deal-making ability.
China may hold out hope it can outwit him in negotiation—businessmen generally
abandon their combativeness and turn meek when they come to Beijing—and that a
commercial focus on both sides can produce pragmatic outcomes.
Expect China to watch Mr. Trump very carefully before
reaching any conclusions about his intentions.
Beijing has learned to tune out the hostile rhetoric of
U.S. presidential candidates. Bill Clinton railed against the “Butchers of
Beijing,” a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, before taking
office and ushering China into the World Trade Organization, which supercharged
its growth. George W. Bush called China a “strategic competitor” before
embracing the country as an ally in his war on terror.
In office, Mr. Trump will discover an enduring reality,
as his predecessors did: No global problem can be solved without China’s help,
and America can only prosper if China does. A trade war would produce only
losers.
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