TRUMP AND CHINA: THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF MUNCHAUSEN’S SYNDROME BY PROXY AS A FOREIGN POLICY
Today, Vice President Mike Pence made a speech in which he asserted that China does not like Donald Trump, that it wants a new president, and so it has launched an offensive that makes Russia’s 2016 attack on our elections “pale by comparison.” He offered no concrete new evidence of such a Chinese onslaught and the cynical observer (anyone with a functioning brain who has been in Washington for more than about an hour and a half) might conclude that Pence’s goals had less to do with national security or even a specific Chinese threat than it does to do with politics.
By singling out China, Pence seeks to achieve two goals. First, he wants to intensify the focus on Chinese as a bogeyman for this administration and its base. Trump runs by identifying threats and bad guys. It’s a standard play for demagogues everywhere. It works especially well with a Trump base that seems live on anger and the Tweets that fuel it. In 2016, Mexicans and refugees from Islamic countries and of course, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were the bogeypersons. This year, the new targets seem to be the #MeToo movement and the Chinese. Not that Trump and Pence are giving up on the old favorites. And also not that going after women and in particular feminists and the Chinese was not part of the formula a couple years ago. It’s just a matter of shifting emphasis.
Of course, going after China as the primary threat to our elections has the added benefit of minimizing the relative threat posed by Russia. The political rationale for doing that as the Mueller investigation proceeds are obvious.
More worrisomely, however, the Pence China speech is part of a rapid escalation of tension with the Chinese. At the heart of this is trade tension. Trump seems to be committed to making bringing China to its knees on trade the primary test of his international economic manhood. This point was underscored on Thursday a.m. at the Washington Economic Club during a presentation by Trump’s chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow. Kudlow spent surprisingly little time on the recent NAFTA reboot or the almost as recent nothingburger of a deal with South Korea. He also spent a somewhat awkward amount of time reassuring the crowd that he personally was a free-trader. He even tried to argue that Trump, heir to the failed policies of Smoot, Hawley and discredited managed economy specialists everywhere, was actually a free trader and that his current love of tariffs was essentially a phase the president was going through. The president’s noble goal, according to Kudlow, was to do what past presidents have not and to get China to roll back its barriers to market entry by apply the pressure of US tariffs.
No matter that the tariffs are paid by US consumers and that they are leading to the Chinese finding new sources for a variety of products including, notably, agricultural goods. No matter that it is damaging a key relationship that is essential to managing the North Korea threat, among others. No matter that by attacking or threatening China at the same time as the EU, steel and aluminum producers everywhere, Japan, auto manufacturers and until recently Canada and Mexico, it has made the US a trade pariah and has also made markets very uncomfortable.
Trump is betting that beating up on China will play well with his base even if they are feeling some of the pain from his tactics. (Especially if he can fund programs that provide some relief as he has done recently in the ag space.) Clearly, Pence’s pitch today is part of that calculus. Between that and Secretary Mattis’ recent cancellation of bilateral defense talks, the confrontation between a US Navy destroyer and the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea and statements like those from Kudlow and the forecast for U.S. Chinese relations for the next few months can only be considered grim. (Made worse by real threats that periodically emerge as in the very disturbing story of a Chinese hack into America’s communications network that also broke today.
The outlook is grim that is, until shortly before the 2020 elections Trump wants to declare himself a hero by curing the disease he created. (As others have observed, he has made Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy the centerpiece of all his policies.) In the meantime, expect increasing turbulence in the world’s most important relationship.
