SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
They have come in droves with their devices for the park’s cherry plants, which are popping with pink and white blossoms. It serves as a blatantly beautiful scenery for discussions about the dangers of global politics.
However, as they wander through the grounds on a Saturday afternoon, Mr. Miao and his companion banter about the US’s attacks on Venezuela and Iran and the rising oil prices.
” Trump is uneven. Mr. Miao, a 66-year-old withdrew financier, who agrees to share his thoughts on the issue that only his title be used, says that he is an investor rather than a politician and strategist.
He points to the Iran war and sees potential for Trump’s disorganized decision-making to benefit China.
” It was a mistake to assault Iran, as it will take the national power of the United States. It is difficult for him to end the war as soon as he imagined, he claims.
” The US’s final aim is to counter China, but this may be more distant now”.
It’s a viewpoint shared by some researchers, both within and outside China, as America once more faces the possibility of being entangled in a Middle Eastern conflict and shifting its military assets from the Indo-Pacific to the area.
The US has strongly tapped into its reserves of missiles and interceptor systems in its combined strikes on Iran and Israel, which cannot be quickly replenished. Some American military experts say the longer the conflict drags on, the more Washington’s ability to project power in the Indo-Pacific, which is key to deterring China from making a shift to command Taiwan, may be diminished.
It can be challenging to understand what ordinary Chinese people think about international politics and, specifically, US-China ties under Donald Trump and Xi Jinping as their political counterparts. People are often optimistic about speaking to American advertising, concerned their opinions will form part of what the Chinese program loosely deems an “anti-China” history.
Additionally, the government has a tight control over China’s local news system, and pure online conversations on social media platforms are heavily censored to remove commentary that Beijing does not approve of.
Beijing had not confirmed the dates ( which Washington had given as March 31 to April 2 ), which had limited media access.
On Wednesday, Trump posted to Truth Social that the summit had been rescheduled for May 14 to 15, suggesting he intends to wind down the war by then. Beijing won’t release Xi’s schedule until a few days before the event, in keeping with previous practice.
” I haven’t heard the news ]of Trump’s visit ]”, says Mr Jiang, a 35-year-old energy researcher, who is strolling with his wife through the Beijing park, taking photos of their young son playing in the blossoms.
But he claims that it benefits the China-US relationship.
” Recently, many things have happened in the international arena, like Iran and Venezuela, that are not good for peace”, he says.
According to Jiang,” The US and China, as the G2, have a responsibility to co-operate,” referring to the “group of two” concept that Trump revived to refer to the superpowers.
A fragile truce endures
Beijing has been kept secret about the summit’s plans, but there have been plenty of indications that it is eager to keep the fragile truce signed by Trump and Xi in South Korea last year on track.
” It really depends on the situation in Iran]whether the summit can proceed ]”, says Professor Wu Xinbo, dean of American studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
He claims that Beijing is committed to bringing it about and that preparations are well underway.
” China is very much looking forward to his visit and the expected return visit by President Xi to the US later this year. There is a lot of expectation for both visits,” he claims.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking on the sidelines of China’s largest annual political gatherings earlier this month, sparing directly against the US by name and generally denounced the Iranian war as a” shouldn’t have happened.”
This language is a remarkable shift from Beijing’s often strident criticism of the US, says Associate Professor Dylan Loh, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Loh says that this was significantly different from Wang Yi’s press conference last year, when he directly attacked the US and said things like that had no moral legitimacy.
” It is quite clear that China is prioritising the Xi-Trump summit over the damage to its national and economic interests in Venezuela and Iran”.
Similar assessments have been made of Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s speech at this week’s China Development Forum, where he indirectly swiped at the US by criticizing protectionism, power politics, and “arbitrary and reckless conduct.”
This implicit criticism” stands in stark contrast to their optimism about the fact that they believe President Xi and President Trump can maintain a stable US-China relationship going forward”, says Daniel Kritenbrink, a former US ambassador to Vietnam now with The Asia Group consultancy.
When Trump visits Beijing, Kritenbrink claims that Iran will be the main topic on the agenda.
China “would have to be uneasy about the regime change aspects of US and Israeli military action,” he says.” I think their main concerns are maintaining stable oil flows from the Middle East, which are currently disrupted,” he says.
” That in and of itself will put some pressure on this detente”.
Wu claims that Beijing will likely support a role in a Middle Eastern stabilization and any peace treaty that would impose sanctions on Iran’s nuclear arsenal, and that this topic will overshadow other summit policy topics like Russia’s war in Ukraine.
‘ It is quite clear that China is prioritising the Xi-Trump summit over the damage to its national and economic interests in Venezuela and Iran.’Associate professor Dylan Loh
China was one of the six major powers that signed on to the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration and ditched by Trump during his first term.
China would certainly like to be a part of the process because we are also a stakeholder in the Middle East, he says.
Low expectations of a grand bargain in Beijing
Trump and Xi may have their first of several potential face-to-face encounters this year at the Beijing summit. It would open the door for Xi to be hosted at the White House later in the year and the pair could also meet at the APEC summit to be held in China’s tech capital, Shenzhen, in November.
This flurry of opportunities, the Supreme Court’s ruling last month, the general uncertainty over Trump’s core tariff structure, and the US’s focus on the Middle East have all slammed expectations of a comprehensive agreement being reached in Beijing.
” A successful meeting is a meeting that proceeds and happens at all”, Loh says.
Experts anticipate that the Trump-Xi summit will prolong the trade truce and potentially result in some additional agreement in areas like China’s lifting of its orders for US soybeans and Boeing aircraft, and continued access to rare earth materials.
The Chinese side is expected to push Washington to relax its strict controls on advanced tech and chip exports to China, to remove Chinese companies from US trade blacklists, and to allow its companies to invest more in America.
Government officials and defense experts in Taipei, Washington, and other locations will closely monitor Trump for any signs of a shifting stance toward Taiwan’s security.
Xi, who regards it as China’s core goal to unify the self-governing island with the mainland, by force if necessary, is expected to stress Beijing’s long-held complaints about US arms sales to Taipei.
Some analysts believe that he might be able to pressure Trump to reduce these sales or change how Washington’s rhetorical stance on Taiwan’s independence is interpreted.
In the meantime, China is capitalising on the global chaos caused by Trump’s war, the ensuing energy crisis, and his tariff campaign to talk up Beijing’s status as a more reliable, stable global partner.
A cavalcade of US allies has traveled to Beijing in recent months, including Canada’s Mark Carney and Britain’s Keir Starmer, in what is a victory of optics, if not substance. This is their first visit to China in almost a decade.
” They all realise that as the US becomes a less reliable partner under Trump, they need to diversify their diplomatic outreach and improve relations. China is a very important choice for them, Wu claims.
Confidence in China’s role on the world stage
People mingling and reading copies of Chinese state newspapers The People’s Daily and The Global Times posted on a notice board on a Saturday morning at a public newsstand outside Beijing’s Workers Stadium sports complex.
The papers carry reports about Ukraine’s concerns that the US could reduce its weapons supply to Kyiv due to the Middle East conflict, and speculation that Washington is preparing to deploy military resources from bases in South Korea to the region.
“]Trump ] has been very unstable and hard to predict”, says Mr An, 71, a retired radio factory worker, who has pulled up to the newsstand on his bicycle.
He wants it to happen, and he is informed that the US president is scheduled to visit the city in May.
” Let me put it simply – a visit is always better than a non-visit. China and the US are not adversaries. We aspire for a harmonious world”, he says.
Since Trump unveiled his tariff agenda in April last year, Beijing has hammered home its resolve to fight back even if it means “eating bitterness” in the short term, as Xi puts it, and enduring economic pain.
This viewpoint is shared by Mr. An, which skeptical people might view as parroting propaganda. While it’s inevitable that the relentless drumbeat of Beijing’s narrative will shape public opinion in China, it can also be easy to write off what is a genuine confidence among the public about their country’s place in the world.
China now has a certain degree of strength to compete with the US. We have a lot of ways to strike back. After all, he claims that China has a large population, rich resources, and a complete industrial chain.
” China is not afraid of sanctions. China can endure it.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the What in the World newsletter each week.
