Dr Yawei Liu: “US-China Relations in the Era of Trump” 

Dr Yawei Liu is the senior advisor on China at The Carter Centre, and an adjunct professor of political science at Emory University. Dr Liu is an expert on US-China relations, and Chinese perceptions of the US, as well as political governance in China. Dr Liu is also the founding editor of the ‘China Elections and Governance’ website, is editor-in-chief of the Carter Centre’s US-China Perception Monitor, and directs the Centre’s China focus Initiative. Dr Liu has written extensively about the dynamics of US-China relations in both English and Mandarin, including co-authoring the popular Chinese book ‘Obama: The Man Who Will Change America’, and publishing regularly with the US-China Perception Monitor. In this interview, Dr Liu discussed US-China relations under the Trump administration, dynamics of Chinese foreign policymaking, and the work of The Carter Centre. 

Are Trump’s recent policies relating to China aiming to increase the level of containment, or do they have another goal? 

I think during Trump’s second term, containment has become less of a priority. Even in the first term he was more interested in balancing trade, which led to the trade war in 2018, and his successor Biden was more committed to containing China than him. Biden’s very strong ideological approach on containing China was quite shocking actually, and Trump’s focus on trade instead may create more hardship for China but Chinese leaders do not feel more threatened. Fundamentally, Trump’s goal is balancing trade and extracting more money from the relationship in order to make America great again. 

Do you think Trump’s approach to China leaves more paths open for the future of the relationship than Biden’s approach? 

To be fair, I think the Trump administration will have more opportunity to find ways to cooperate with China. Firstly, look at how Trump brags about his relationship with Xi despite the ongoing trade wars. Trump’s reluctance to challenge Xi leaves more opportunities open than Biden, who was very clear about how the US-China relationship was constituted. Biden was also much more outspoken against China’s politics, on issues of human rights and so on, which Trump and his administration are much more happy to disregard. 

The central issue of the Trump administration is economic, and China has learned how to respond effectively to this kind of single-issue offensive. As a result, both Washington and Beijing are willing to come to the table and strike a deal. Overall, Trump’s pragmatic approach to China has made it possible for the two nations to coordinate their policies on certain issues.

Of course, for Trump, he also wants China to provide help in ending the war in Ukraine and this is something Xi Jinping is reluctant to offer unless the incentive from the U.S. side is too sweet to reject.  

In 2022, you wrote that the US was still essential for China’s modernisation, does China still want to include the US in its modernisation process now? 

I think all the Chinese leaders from Mao to Xi believed that the US is a necessary partner in China’s quest for modernization. In the early years since PRC was founded, Mao resented Washington’s China policy and was led to believe Moscow might be able to offer much needed technical and financial support.  Moscow’s condescension and heavy-handedness in dealing with China changed Mao’s mind and began to wave the olive branch to Washington. This led to the historic meeting between him and Nixon in 1972. Chinese leaders since then have focused a lot on how to maintain a productive  relationship with the US. Deng Xiaoping paved the way; Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao spent a lot of their energies in keeping the bilateral relationship close. China’s economic rise has sounded alarm to American leaders. Slowly but firmly, a new consensus has emerged in Washington that engaging China has to be selective and everything has to be done to prevent China from edging the U.S. out of the superpower position. More than a decade into the American game of rebalancing, Xi Jinping may feel Washington is becoming an obstacle for China’s quest for modernizing. The current signalling from China with events like the Fourth Plenum seems to reflect a China under siege mentality and we see an effort to revive the spirit of self-reliance..

But I do not think Xi and other Chinese leaders have totally given up on the U.S. It is too important a factor in global economic and political affairs that voluntarily decoupling from it is suicidal. And, there is also the danger of armed conflict between China and the U.S. because of U.S. commitment to collective security and democracy. 

For people like us who are evaluating the US-China relationship on a daily basis and seeking ways to prevent bilateral rivalry from veering into a conflict, we are always advocating for better understanding between the US and China, and identifying  each country’s red lines. The current consensus in Beijing is that going back to the ‘golden era’ is no longer possible, but mismanaging it will only bring self-inflicted wounds that will further prolong China’s economic slowdown and simmer public frustration. 

A recent report by the Carter Centre stated that 90% of the Chinese people wanted China to play a proactive role in global affairs. How much does popular sentiment impact China’s foreign policy? 

The finding of our own poll from last year found that the Chinese people were confident that China should play a more active role in global affairs. However, the recent falter in China’s growth in recent years may affect this sentiment, as the country may turn inwards rather than focusing on external issues. 

This robust popular attitude of global engagement may be due to the Chinese media spreading the idea of China being a core part of the world order and becoming more influential. This biased information flow sometimes leads to unrealistic expectations for the Chinese public, which is not matched by China’s real action on the ground. In recent years, Xi Jinping has introduced three new initiatives: global development, global security and global civilization. They seem to suggest China has greatly expanded its global outreach but China’s impact on regional development and security is still much smaller than that of the U.S. 

However, to Chinese leaders, making their people feel good is much more useful than allowing their people to see reality. 

Another finding of the survey is that the Chinese public saw Russia and North Korea as China’s closest allies. Is this an opinion only held by the public or is it reflected in policymakers? 

I am always curious why the Chinese feel Russia is a more trustworthy friend because growing up in China and learning the history of what the Russians did in the early years of the People’s Republic, they were never friendly to China. Obviously Russia poses less of a security threat to China nowadays and there is no gain in  antagonising Russia, but to see Moscow as a trustworthy friend does not make sense. 

On the issue of North Korea, China seems to have taken a very technocratic approach. If North Korea distracts US it is all the better. Many in China have also argued the collapse of DPRK will not only enable the US forces to station near the Yalu River but also bring an influx of refugees. 

If the popular sentiment toward Russia and North Korea is real, it will be easier for the Chinese leaders to adopt pro-Moscow and Pyongyang policies. And these policies, I think, may eventually hurt China’s long-term interests. 

One opinion I’ve heard is that China’s closeness to Russia and North Korea is a symbol that they have become China’s client states. Is this an over exaggeration? 

I don’t think that China has become a leader of these countries at all. I recently heard a new term called CRINK, i.e.China, Russia, Iran, North Korea have formed a new bloc to counter the West. These countries do have some close relationships, but China is not able to direct these countries. China doesn’t want North Korea to be a nuclear power, but they have done so anyway. The relationship between North Korea and China is still very volatile to say the least. 

Equally, there is no way that Russia is going to listen to Beijing in terms of what it does. We know that Russia has for years had an issue with China’s BRI moving into Central Asia which is Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. Russia has recently become quite dependent on China economically. Russia’s economy is probably smaller than that of Zhejiang Province. However, Russia is still a big military power and has strong capabilities. China is very cautious in its relations with these countries, and will not commit to them strongly. If there is a bloc then it is mostly a symbolic one. 

Can you explain the work of the Carter Centre, what is its ethos and what work does it do on China? 

The Carter Centre is a huge international NGO, and its mission is “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope”. The majority of its work is in Africa, Latin America and other developing countries. One of its major areas is public health, and it is determined to  eradicate guinea-worm. When The Carter Center launched this program there were 1.5 million cases in the world. Now it is down to about 15 cases a year. The second programming area of The Carter Center is advancing global peace through conflict resolution and democracy promotion. Our work on China is mostly based around the legacy of President Carter, who made the decision to normalise relations between the US and China on December 15^th, 1978. We are fulling in the business of “waging peace between the U.S. and China by reducing misperceptions held by two peoples of each other, increasing the frequency and depth of people-to-people contact and finding ways for both countries to cooperate. No global issue can be successfully tackled if the U.S. and China do not see eye to eye in responding to it. President Trump is not totally off the mark when he said together the US and China can do big things in the world.