Ok. China and the United States have arrived at a tenuous ‘peace’ re-trade post Donald Trump and Xi JinPing meeting. So far so good. But key and essential is the interregnum between now and what happens next. If The Economist newspaper of London is to be believed, then China is winning the trade war. It (China) is establishing new regimes re-trade in this delicate moment and that the name of the game is to ease frisson and friction by conflict management.
The Economist goes further positing structural features and factors - communication lines, lack of requisite expertise and touchpoints - that impinge on relations and negotiations between the US and China.
The London based newspaper is right-but only up to a point. There appears to be more to what transpired between Xi and Trump. In the main, both appeared to have, to some extent understood where each comes from. But the newspaper is wrong too. In terms of the structure of negotiations, and other features like communication ones, The Economist is spot on. But there can be easily obviated.
The United States has a reservoir of academic talent to dig into. A given set of China professors can be roped into and their perspectives sought on by a range of China specific matters - trade, security, government, history and political economy - by the Trump administration. But caveat emptor: the admin would do well in steering clear from so-called policy wonk’s: they are often stuck in a certain mode of thinking which is path dependent. Their prejudices and past affiliations, an inflated sense of self make them susceptible to a certain grandiosity that is unhelpful - to say the least. (Of the historian cast, one John Keay’s works on China are excellent).
Two, re-communications talking to China through the media should be avoided at all costs. The same applies to China - even when the name of the game is to, for tactical reasons, trot out old chestnuts. A robust communication link that has substantive depth and knowledge on both China and the United States and that has access points to either must be cultivated. (Here some charm by both sides might work: a visit or a meeting between the first ladies of both countries to break the ice?).
Three, the structure of negotiations must be worked out and redone in a way that is not zero sum. This may mean both sides climbing down a little from their perches and avoiding maximalism.
Now, moving onto the substance (or meat) of the trade issue, while the proverbial stage has been set, it is time to develop and expand upon it. Here The Economist’s take on China crafting new regimes becomes pertinent. Broadly, regimes are crafted on raw power. Witness the post war regimes across domains that were created. But while power and its balance is the cardinal premise for this, a fund of legitimacy is the other prong.
Legitimacy through economic power
Legitimacy accrues from influence and a buy in by other states of a given state’s preferences. As of now, international relations do not appear to conform to preference following or legitimacy seeking paradigms. In actual terms, inter-state relations contemporarily flow from hard power and wielding of economic power to get desired outcomes. This approach has been tried but the results for both China and the United States are mixed.
China appears to have studied the negotiating style of US president Donald Trump, the reflexes of his administration, the military, political and economic balance of power across the world. The country is naturally using that to its advantage. The United States, under Donald Trump, is using the country’s immense reservoirs of power to reshape international trade and economic relations.
Central to this is Donald Trump’s negotiating style. Both approaches of respective countries now have diminishing returns. For negotiations to move forward on an even keel, and in a win-win formulation – essential for the US, China and the world at large, the next frontier to be crossed and crystallized is the ‘agenda setting power’. Associated with late Joseph Nye of Harvard university, and related to soft power, agenda setting power roughly means ‘setting the terms of the debate’.
By way of a digression here, the United States must understand that Chinese strategists, in consonance with the great philosopher of war Sun Tzu, by virtue of strategic patience, can wear down an opponent and then provoke him (her) into a state (condition) where China wants him/her to be.
China, on the other hand, must understand that the US, under Donald Trump, is a different country. The 47th president of the US is a disruptor; but his disruption is not merely for the sake of it. It is aimed at restoring agency to Americans, by reshaping both the domestic and the international context. If and when (God forbid) Chinese strategic patience confronts Donald Trump’s strategic impatience, world peace is at stake. Agenda setting, chiseling at the structure of negotiations to make it win-win, a prudent communications paradigm, and understanding are key.
A great and prudent start for this may be for the first ladies of China and the US to send invitations to each other. The former’s subtle sophistication and the latter’s grace, charm and elegance might be just the starting points for preventing the quasi-Cold War from turning into a hot one!
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