China seeks to capitalise on Trump chaos

Amid deepening uncertainty in the Western alliance following Donald Trump’s return to the White House, China has identified potential strategic advantage for itself in the concerns that surround the future of US global leadership. Beijing is seeking to capitalise on the uncertainty and the US, no less than other Western nations, should not lose sight of the imperative to remain united in confronting the Chinese communist juggernaut’s ambitions.

China’s tactics, North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow reported on Saturday, were in full view at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress. On Friday, veteran Foreign Minister Wang Yi cast China as a source of “precious stability” in a world made increasingly uncertain by Mr Trump’s chaos. In scripted answers to questions about China’s response to what he called a “turbulent world”, Mr Wang accused the White House of choosing to promote “the law of the jungle” by unilaterally abrogating longstanding agreements and promoting “America first”. By contrast, he said, Beijing was ready to back those who wanted constant and stable relationships rather than the uncertainties of Mr Trump.

“Should every country say ‘my country first’ and obsess about being at a position of strength … smaller countries would bear the brunt,” Mr Wang said. He spoke of countries that might feel betrayed by Mr Trump as potential candidates for closer ties with China. The US, he asserted, would no longer defend poor nations that were recipients of US aid programs that had been cut. By contrast, he extolled the benefits of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (debt diplomacy), which, he claimed, “more than three-quarters of countries around the world have joined”. Gone from Mr Wang’s press conference was any sign of China’s belligerent “wolf warrior” diplomacy of recent years. Instead, he made the brazen assertion that amid increasing global turmoil, Beijing was constant and stable.

No country should believe that. The Chinese navy’s coercive deployment of warships to circumnavigate Australia shows Beijing has not changed. So does Mr Wang’s arrogant dismissal of complaints about its brazen military actions in the South China Sea that he claimed, falsely, were “shadow puppetry” by external forces. No less bogus were Mr Wang’s claims that China was a champion of peace in Ukraine and Gaza. That does not have the slightest veracity as Beijing launches military manoeuvres that are preparation for an invasion of Taiwan and troops from North Korea, a Chinese supplicant state, are prominent on the frontline of the reinvigorated onslaught that Russia – emboldened by Mr Trump – has launched against Ukraine.