Does Trump really target Xi Jinping?

Yoo Blood-Chul
The author is the chief of China Lab at the Jongang Ilbo.

The war between Ukraine and Russia, after years of strategic blood and faux pas effusions, seems to approach a conclusion. Some observers speculate that this change was accelerated by the pressure by American president Donald Trump, who would have taken a hard line with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The rumor mill wants Trump to push a rapid end to the conflict not for humanitarian concern, but to reallocate the attention of the Americas and the firepower to its real long -term competitor: China. But is this really the case?
It is tempting to interpret foreign policy through the objective of American-Chinese rivalry. After all, the two countries have been locked in a competition increasingly tense for global influence. Prices, technological prohibitions and diplomatic beards have defined a large part of the recent American story. But when we examine prevails over his real words, his decisions and the consequences of his actions, he becomes less clear that he directly confronts Chinese President Xi Jinping or that he considers the Beijing regime as his main opponent.
Take, for example, his approach to international broadcasters funded by the United States such as Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia. These media have long kept on the front line of the ideological battle with China, distributing in Mandarin and other languages ​​to the public in the region. They play a double role: the promotion of American values ​​while also holding authoritarian regimes responsible for independent reports. In particular, their work exposing human rights violations in the Uighur autonomous region of Chinas Xinjiang has won global recognition and peaches.

Traditional Russian wooden dolls called Matryoshka representing Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the left, and American president Donald Trump are on sale in a souvenir shop in Saint Petersburg, Russia, November 21, 2024. [AP/YONHAP]

However, instead of strengthening these efforts, the Trump administration has decided to reduce these organizations, citing budgetary concerns and the desire to rationalize operations. The decision carried a blow for us, a soft power in Asia. For China, it was a welcome development. The Chinese media managed by the state responded with a barely veiled celebration. An editorial declared that the fingerprints of Voas are on all malicious lies on China and exulted that the factory of Lies is finally swept in the bin of history. The involvement was clear: Washington was deliberately silent some of his most powerful tools in the battle for hearts and minds.
If Trump was really engaged in a long-term struggle for world domination against China, would it be so quick to dismantle the critical elements of the information infrastructure of the Americas? His signature slogan, Make America again large, does not necessarily imply the deletion of China. Rather, it seems to be rooted in a more transactional vision of the world which prices an immediate economic advantage on major strategic objectives. If cooperating with Beijing could provide tangible gains for the American economy, Trump could well choose a partnership rather than confrontation. Ideological coherence has never been his strong costume; What matters is the agreement.
On the other hand, his posture on the war in Ukraine is notably more urgent. He has repeatedly pointed out the desire to end the American involvement as quickly as possible. The prospect that the Ukrainian territory fell into Russian hands seems to be classifying low on his list of concerns. What really disturbs him is the current financial drainage: the apparently endless flow of military aid is channeled in Kyiv. For Trump, this is an unsustainable burden an investment without visible yield. He considers it less as a battle for democracy than an expensive tangle leading to American interests.
Instead, it seems more interested in extracting the value of the region by alternative means, such as resource agreements or reconstruction contracts. If the United States can take advantage of the Ukraine mineral wealth to compensate for war costs, this would align perfectly with the approach of Trumps’s foreign policy. In this vision of the world, national interest is not measured in terms of alliances or influence, but in profit and loss.

President Donald Trump shakes the hand of Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019. [AP/YONHAP]

This is why it can be wrong to interpret Trump each movement as part of a more important chess match with China. Assign a strategic depth to what can actually be reactive and focused on political risks focused on the agreement despite the essence of Trumpism. Its actions are often less guided by a long -term vision than by immediate political or economic calculations. Although he can sometimes invoke the spectrum of China to rally, his real policies tell a more nuanced and sometimes contradictory story.
In short, visualization prevails over foreign policy only through the objective of the American-Chinese rivalry risks overexpressing its strategic intentions. What we can be witnesses is not a deliberate realignment against Beijing, but rather a series of ad hoc decisions shaped by the promise of a short -term gain.
Translated using a generative AI and edited by Korea Jongang Daily Staff.