Where Does China Stand With the Next White House?

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: Questions remain about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s China policy, Chinese authorities shut down a spontaneous nighttime cycling movement, and Taiwan seeks to curry favor with the next White House by pitching an arms deal.

Trump’s China Policy: 3 Questions

As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, it’s clear that a more hard-line China policy is coming—but the shape that it will take and its limits are not yet apparent. There are some big questions and divisions already emerging in the circles around Trump.

The second Trump administration must ask: Can its China policy can be reconciled with its domestic economic needs? Tariffs are the most certain policy, and it’s possible that trade hawk Robert Lighthizer will return as U.S. trade representative. Some Republican advisors aspire to total decoupling from China, which is the largest supplier of goods to the United States and its third-largest buyer.

Trump’s oft-stated preference for tariffs on China set at 60 percent may lead to significant inflation and lead the United States to turn to cheaper manufacturing alternatives in countries such as Indonesia or Vietnam. That might ease the blow, though even so-called friend-shoring would run up against the 10 to 20 percent tariffs Trump says he wants to apply to all countries, including allies.

Sticker shock had painful consequences for Democrats in recent years, and the same may apply for Republicans once in power, especially if Americans simultaneously lose access to low-cost goods through Chinese apps such as Temu and Shein.

Another big question: How much leverage do business holdings in China among Trump allies give Beijing? Trump himself has long-standing interests in the country; key ally and real estate developer Steve Wynn has invested heavily in Macao’s casinos.

However, the most important figure will be the man whom Trump watched the election results with at Mar-a-Lago: Elon Musk, whose success with manufacturing Teslas in China is tied to favorable policies from Beijing. Musk has walked the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line issues such as Taiwan and Xinjiang and described himself as “kind of pro-China.”

Trump has repeatedly shown that he can be persuaded when it comes to Chinese business interests if spoken to directly. As president, he reversed positions on Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE after phone calls with Chinese political leadership in 2018 and on Huawei after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in 2019.

After advocating for banning social media app TikTok—and failing to do so in 2020—Trump made U-turn this year after meeting with megadonor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass. As with the first Trump administration, policy may depend on whom the president talked to last.

In some ways, the most abstract question about Trump’s future China policy is the biggest one: Is the United States facing down China out of ideological principle, or is it doing so out of a need for geopolitical primacy? That makes a difference in the nature of the opposition. Grand bargains are possible if Washington sees Beijing as a fellow player on the board but not if it conceives of the CCP as abhorrent.

These differences in approach would significantly affect U.S. positions on Taiwan. Trump strategists such as Elbridge Colby have criticized Ukraine as a distraction from the Asia-Pacific while also saying that Taiwan isn’t doing enough to defend itself. Trump has blamed Taipei for being a security freeloader and implied that he might not defend the island.

If the United States sees Taiwan as a vital beacon of democracy, Taipei will have a lot more leverage in Washington than if it is seen as a troublesome and expensive ally.

Staffing choices matter here. It may be difficult for allied China hawks to cite the work of human rights NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch if they are also reporting on and criticizing Trump-backed policies. But some figures in Trump’s orbit have shown a commitment to human rights in China, including his pick for national security advisor, Rep. Mike Waltz.

Sen. Marco Rubio, who has played a prominent role in human rights work, is also broadly in this camp. On Monday, it was reported that he is Trump’s likely pick for secretary of state. Like fellow China hawk Sen. Ted Cruz, Rubio is also influenced by the views of conservative Latinos in his constituency who are opposed to communist regimes, either from personal experience or family memory.

Yet that is not a view that Trump shares. He has praised Xi for ruling “with an iron fist” and for his abolition of presidential term limits. As a result, ideological competition between democracy and autocracy may play second fiddle in the relationship.

What We’re Following

The great China bike ride. Last week, tens of thousands of students joined a nighttime cycling trend—traveling from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng, a distance of about 40 miles—until authorities stepped in to shut it down. It’s a sterling example of how the Chinese official mindset can turn spontaneous joy into a political problem.

Cycling has enjoyed a resurgence among Chinese students this year after years of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June, four students completed the Zhengzhou-to-Kaifeng ride in a joking bid to enjoy Kaifeng’s soup dumplings. Others soon started imitating it, and their numbers grew to more than 100,000 this past weekend.

The movement did not seem political; some students carried Chinese flags and sang the national anthem, wary that they might be labeled a threat. Chinese media at first praised the trend, but as the numbers grew, the authorities started to see it as a potential vector for youth mobilization. One WeChat group message from a school warned students, “This incident has developed into a political movement. If you participate in it, your life is over.”

To be sure, the ride presented logistical challenges in Kaifeng, with highways packed and bikes abandoned in the city. But young Chinese already struggling with their country’s limits will take the abrupt shutdown as a simple message: “We won’t even let you have this.”

China reacts to Trump win. Reactions to Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election are relatively muted in China; comments on the official Xinhua announcement are heavily censored. Ultranationalists are celebrating the win, seeing it as favoring their side against liberals, feminism, and ethnic minorities.

However, hawkish picks such as Rubio and Waltz are likely to cause discontent in Beijing. China previously targeted Rubio, among others, in an online influence campaign focused on down-ballot races. (Rubio’s team has spent a lot of time and effort working on China issues.) But Chinese officials are unlikely to react publicly to the picks as they quietly scope out who will join the new administration.

If Rubio ends up the next secretary of state, I expect that the Chinese sanctions against him in retaliation for his positions on Hong Kong may not be officially lifted but will be quietly ignored for any future China visits.

Tech and Business

Taiwan arms sales. Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s administration reportedly didn’t waste any time before trying to curry favor with the new order in Washington—pitching an arms deal that could include up to $15 billion in U.S. equipment. The list, which reportedly includes up to 60 F-35 jets, an Aegis destroyer, and as many as 400 Patriot missiles, attracted immediate criticism for being more geared toward U.S. needs than Taiwanese defense priorities.

Taiwan’s air force is large and politically influential, but it would be rapidly endangered in any conflict with China. There are frequent calls from U.S. military experts to move toward a more dispersed, drone-based force. But Taipei may see buying favor with Washington as a better value purchase.

Insurance frauds? Chinese authorities delivered another blow to fallen real estate giant China Evergrande Group: Several former senior executives from its insurance arm have likely been detained amid investigations into financial mismanagement. Evergrande Life Insurance was among the top life insurance firms in China, with approximately $31.8 billion in assets.

The probe is likely part of a wider crackdown triggered by accusations of wide-ranging insurance fraud against drugmaker AstraZeneca. The company’s China chairperson has been detained, and dozens of senior executives are being investigated.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• What Trump’s Win Means for U.S. Foreign Policy by FP Staff
• Why She Lost by Michael Hirsh
• The 10 Foreign-Policy Implications of the 2024 U.S. Election by Stephen M. Walt

A Bit of Culture

For the last 1,500 years, The Peach Blossom Spring by poet Tao Yuanming (365-427) has been the archetypal vision of a quiet, untroubled life in China—safe from malice, free from want, and innocent of history. However, it bears no resemblance to the world of chaos and collapse that Tao himself lived in during the Six Dynasties period.—Brendan O’Kane, translator

The Peach Blossom Spring
By Tao Yuanming

During the Taiyuan years of the Jin, there was a fisherman from Wuling who lost track of how far upstream he had gone and found himself amid a grove of flowering peach trees. For hundreds of paces on either side, the stream was lined with nothing but peach trees, sweet-scented and beautiful, and the air was full of falling petals fluttering to the ground.

The fisherman marveled at the sight and then pressed on through the grove to find the far edge. On the far side of the trees was a spring, and on the other side of the spring there was a mountain, and in the mountain there was a small opening, and through that opening the fisherman could just make out what looked like a light.

He left his boat and squeezed through the narrow opening, which was just wide enough to admit a person. A few dozen paces inside, the crack opened suddenly onto a broad, level plain laid out with neat little cottages. There were rich cultivated fields and lovely ponds, and bamboo, mulberry, and other plants grew there. Paths crisscrossed the fields, close enough for one household’s chickens to hear the neighbors’ dogs.

Men and women, dressed just like ordinary people, went back and forth at their work in the fields, and everyone, young and old, was content and free of cares. The sight of the fisherman caused a commotion. They asked how he had got there, and he told them the whole story. He was invited to one villager’s home, where they served him wine and killed a chicken for a feast. As word of the newcomer got around, the villagers came to see him.

They said their ancestors had fled the turmoil of the Qin. With their wives and children and neighbors, they had taken refuge in this secluded place and never left. The village had been completely cut off from the outside world ever since. They asked him what dynasty it was and proved never even to have heard of the Han, let alone the Wei or the Jin.

The fisherman enumerated the dynasties, recounting what he knew of the fortunes of each; the villagers sighed sympathetically. Each of the villagers invited the fisherman to their homes, and in every home he was offered wine and food. He stayed several days before leaving. As he left, one of the villagers said, “No one outside needs to know about us.”