M Santhananaban
US President Donald Trump’s high-profile visit to China, with its well-orchestrated optics, is over.
Some modest progress has been made in stabilising the China-US bilateral relationship.
His combative, coercive and competitive approach appeared to be refined, replaced in Beijing by a more conciliatory, cooperation-based posture, as the reality of a consolidated, complex and genuinely colossal China has become impossible to ignore.
In that sense it was something of a re-education for Trump and for a US political establishment that has long been indebted, economically interdependent with China and, at times, frustratingly incompetent in its reading of that ancient nation’s trajectory.
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The visit made plain that China is effectively the co-equal of the United States, but without the baggage of unwinnable wars, unchecked aggression and cascading crises on multiple fronts.
The broader picture is less flattering to Washington. In the past 14 months Trump has damaged his nation’s economy and reputation with many of its partners, particularly Canada, Mexico and several European countries.
While he has since attempted his customary spin, presenting the Beijing summit as positive and productive, the outcome was more measured and modest than his rhetoric suggested.
The nations that have borne the cost of recent US pressure – Cuba, Iran, Lebanon and Venezuela – are left watching Washington closely. Let us hope for a more meaningful peace.
But what happened next made that hope harder to sustain.
This week ought to have marked a new phase in international relations. The unambiguously unipolar world was diplomatically – and with some delicacy – dismantled and dismissed by President Xi Jinping, directly in front of the sitting US president.
Commentator Fareed Zakaria has written of China’s long game and American volatility.
But Trump has shown little sign of falling into line with the logic of restraint. His latest statement – that “there won’t be anything left” of Iran if Tehran fails to reach a deal – suggests he is behaving as if nothing significant happened in Beijing.
Trump posted on Truth Social that “the Clock is Ticking” and Iran must “get moving, FAST”, adding “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
The warning came in capitals. But those words may apply more urgently to the US than to any of its adversaries.
A prolonged war against Iran will drain and diminish the US. It also imperils the entire global economy, initially through inflation and later through deeper structural damage. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already sent oil prices soaring globally and spiked petrol prices in the US.
Ultimately, it falls to the people of the US to hold this warmongering leader to account and set their country on a more pragmatic course towards a more durable global peace and economic stability.
Dato’ M Santhananaban is a former Malaysian ambassador with 45 years of public sector experience.
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