5
0

Financial Times: Chinese Officials “Awed” by Trump’s “Skill as a Strategist and Tactician”


 invite response                
2018 Jul 26, 4:03am   5,446 views  25 comments

by MisterLefty   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his [Trump’s] skill as a strategist and tactician…..

Few Chinese think that Mr Trump’s primary concern is to rebalance the bilateral trade deficit….They think the US president’s goal is nothing less than remaking the global order.

They think Mr Trump feels he is presiding over the relative decline of his great nation. It is not that the current order does not benefit the US. The problem is that it benefits others more in relative terms. To make things worse the US is investing billions of dollars and a fair amount of blood in supporting the very alliances and international institutions that are constraining America and facilitating China’s rise.

In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions….as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington.

Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong.

My interlocutors….describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skilful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.

For the Chinese, even Mr Trump’s sycophantic press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki had a strategic purpose. They see it as Henry Kissinger in reverse. In 1972, the US nudged China off the Soviet axis in order to put pressure on its real rival, the Soviet Union. Today Mr Trump is reaching out to Russia in order to isolate China.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/07/financial-times-chinese-officials-awed-trumps-skill-strategist-tactician.html

Comments 1 - 25 of 25        Search these comments

1   Onvacation   2018 Jul 26, 4:49am  

RafiMaas says

As anyone who has done a renovation knows, the teardown in the easy part. Building is hard.

It's not a teardown for a renovation. It's for a completely new building!
2   Onvacation   2018 Jul 26, 4:51am  

RafiMaas says
Trump is at best capable of delivering only on the easy, destructive part, and will leave his successors to clean up his mess.

The mess was here before Trump. MAGA.
3   bob2356   2018 Jul 26, 4:53am  

Too bad you can't actually read the article unless you subscribe to FT, so we just have the cherry picked parts.
4   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 7:29am  

RafiMaas says
Trump is at best capable of delivering only on the easy, destructive part, and will leave his successors to clean up his mess.


Sure.... nice dream

and the proof is the multi-billion dollar Trump organization with over 22,000 employees, that happened by accident, right?
5   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 8:37am  

Leftist Democrats Failed Wish List

Trump won't be president
Trump can't kill the individual mandate
Trump can't pass tax reform
Gorsuch won't be confirmed
Trump won't kill net neutrality
Trump will cause Nuclear War with North Korea
Trump will cause a trade war with the EU
Trump is going to ruin trade relations with China.

Whatever Democrats have to hold onto to keep hope!
6   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 9:11am  

RafiMaas says
Leaving out the 6 bankruptcies? Why they don't fit the narrative?


Out of over 500 business enterprises, sounds like a pretty good record, don't you think?
7   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 9:17am  

MrMagic says
Out of over 500 business enterprises, sounds like a pretty good record, don't yyou think?


I love when random internet guys (not on Patrick.net of course) who aren't even in the 7 digits are making fun of billionaires like they know "what the fuck is going on" when it comes to making money.
8   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 9:30am  

Rafi/Aphroman, stop trolling and fucking around. That wasn't a personal attack.

edit: See? I've even further clarified that we're not talking about anyone on Pat.net.
9   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 9:43am  

Aphroman says
Lol dishonest and disingenuous as usual, no wonder you’re a Trump guy.

The comment makes absolutely zero sense in this context, because you were absolutely levying a personal attack.

Why not just own it, you lying little sack of shit


lol, one of the biggest criticisms of Trump from Democrats is "he's gone bankrupt" and "he's not as rich as he claims". This isn't anything new. Lots of random people who have never made a square million in their lives love to criticize a billionaire. I just find it funny.
10   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 10:01am  

RafiMaas says
Not to mention now a post of mine calling you on your shit is gone. Sad.


I only deleted that post because you were levying personal attacks. I left up Aphroman's posts (with personal insults) just to show Patrick and other mods what kind of posts you guys are making (which are being deleted).
11   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 10:03am  

Aphroman says

More dishonest spin. Time to lose your mod status. Patnet won’t survive your dishonest tactics much longer.

Anyone with an IQ north of 100 knows exactly what you were doing.

Which is why ypu backpedaled and edited your comment and now you’re lying trying to spin it away


What am I spinning?

Guys who haven't made even ONE million dollars are trying to call out a billionaire. Trump has more business sense than 99.99% of the people who are making fun of him. It's ridiculous (but funny). It's like some fat 300 pound feminist calling people out about body image and health. It's fucking ridiculous.
12   Shaman   2018 Jul 26, 10:06am  

Aphroman says
The Chinese should stick to what they know, cheap massages and handjobs


And Aphroids should stick to what they know, car jackings and crack pipes.
13   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jul 26, 10:39am  

The Chinese are good at flattery.
Every random move can be seen as a smart move in 17 dimensions chess.
However:
- China: whatever the US does, it will be hard to prevent that country to continue to catch up with the developed world, and based on its population it means it will grow to 2-4 times the size of the US economy. A large part of this is just unavoidable. They are the 800lb gorilla of the world, and the world will feel it. And Trump is presiding over the relative decline of his great nation. Not much he can do.
- Russia: you can court them and their dictator all you want. This doesn't change the fact that Russia and Russians see themselves (or want to be) the 2nd super power that counter balance the power of the US. i.e. they are against the US by default. Russia will ignore the US and continue to push its pawns in countries around it: like Ukraine, Iran and Syria. The only thing that will change this is when China starts asserting itself against them, and Russians are forced to admit they are a tiny country by population and economy.
- multilateral institutions: they were built to assert US power and may to some degree empower the weak, but Trump will realize there is not that much he can do to force smaller countries to do this or that. All you can do is (1) invade them which you can't do everywhere and is too costly, (2) punish them economically which is counter productive, (3) carrots and diplomacy, which is what international institutions do. Pissed off small nations can and will make your life harder. (just wait for North Korea to take the goodies and renege on giving up weapons).
Further it would be smart to assume the shackles of multilateralism just before passing the relay to China as the world most powerful nation, - handing them the shackles with it.
There is no clear vision of what Trump is trying to achieve and how he is trying to do it. As far as I can tell it is just chaos, just like his team.
Chaos can be good if it changes bad habits and forces people to reconsider situations, but it can also lead to catastrophic breakage or basic lack of trust. Way to early to claim Trump is smart.
14   Shaman   2018 Jul 26, 10:53am  

China is doing very well for having to deal with a communist government. Sure they have embraced capitalism on the supply side, cobbling it onto their communist framework in an amalgam of necessity, and as long as demand keeps being met by foreign trade they can expand. But their newly wealthy keep escaping overseas to nations with much less authoritarian governments, expatriating their money with them. This is a constant drain on the Red State that isn’t going away until their government reforms utterly.

If we see evidence of this happening, China may soon surpass the USA as most powerful country. So far, no dice. For all their achievements, China is still stuck in the mire of mandated adherence to bad/discredited ideas.

Trump is taking advantage of the Chinese dependence on our markets to renegotiate trade to be more fair to us. It’s overdue, and involves some risk, but we still hold all the important cards. The Chinese government is far too precarious to risk the major recession that would result from a major trade war with the USA.
15   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 10:56am  

Aphroman says
I think a better analogy would be a skinny soft punk bitch who thinks they’re tough shit with a few bucks, yet has to resort to importing Cheap Chinese crap and breeding mongoloids! Lol


Sad.

I'm pretty happy with life. Worked hard, made money. Are you happy?
16   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 11:00am  

Wow.... amazing stuff...

Aphroman says
Why not just own it, you lying little sack of shit


RafiMaas says
Not to mention now a post of mine calling you on your shit is gone.


Aphroman says
More dishonest spin. Time to lose your mod status.


RafiMaas says
I bet when they choose moderators at other sites they look for people who aren't lying pieces of shit.


And these guys are still allowed to continue posting....

Hmmmmm....
17   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 11:01am  

Quigley says
1. Poor at written comprehension (responds with “what?”)
2. Intellectually Dishonest
3. Unabashedly racist

We don’t have that many posters on Patnet that can check all three boxes.

Congratulations Aphroman!


LOL
18   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 11:03am  

Goran_K says
Guys who haven't made even ONE million dollars are trying to call out a billionaire. Trump has more business sense than 99.99% of the people who are making fun of him. It's ridiculous (but funny).


That's all the Democrat party has left. No policies, no plans, no vision, just daily mocking of Trump.

That's a pretty weak platform.
19   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 11:05am  

Trump paid more taxes in ONE year than most of his detractors would make in 5-10 lifetimes.
20   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 11:07am  

Goran_K says
Trump paid more taxes in ONE year than most of his detractors would make in 5-10 lifetimes.


Please stop with those pesky facts again.
21   Ceffer   2018 Jul 26, 11:16am  

They thought Trump was playing hardball when he was just stuck in his hotel room struggling with a Chinese finger trap.
22   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 11:16am  

Aphroman says
And as a bonus i walk around shirtless most of summer. Like a real, unapologetic American Man.


I'd be worried about skin cancer these days.
23   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 11:42am  

Goran_K says
MrMagic says
Out of over 500 business enterprises, sounds like a pretty good record, don't yyou think?


I love when random internet guys (not on Patrick.net of course) who aren't even in the 7 digits are making fun of billionaires like they know "what the fuck is going on" when it comes to making money.


Strange logic.

Only in Liberal Land can being successful with 99% of your business enterprises be considered bad.
24   MrMagic   2018 Jul 26, 12:35pm  

Can a moderator here please explain:

Quigley's comment (which was at #20) right above his #21 comment was wacked and deleted, yet Aphroman's comment #13 calling Goran a "lying little sack of shit" (among other things) gets to stay.

Honestly, can a mod please explain these new standards?

Here, #13 reposted:

Aphroman says
Goran_K says
Rafi/Aphroman, stop trolling and fucking around. That wasn't a personal attack.

edit: See? I've even further clarified that we're not talking about anyone on Pat.net.


Lol dishonest and disingenuous as usual, no wonder you’re a Trump guy.

The comment makes absolutely zero sense in this context, because you were absolutely levying a personal attack.

Why not just own it, you lying little sack of shit
25   Goran_K   2018 Jul 26, 1:06pm  

MrMagic says
Quigley's comment (which was at #20) right above his #21 comment was wacked and deleted, yet Aphroman's comment #13 calling Goran a "lying little sack of shit" (among other things) gets to stay.

Honestly, can a mod please explain these new standards?

Here, #13 reposted:


I've deleted the offending post.

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions