[Column] Trump’s kingdom, Xi’s empire

By Park Min-hee, senior inter-Korean affairs and diplomacy author

Throughout his journey to Korea for the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation discussion board final month, US President Donald Trump portrayed himself as somebody thirsty for the throne. Grinning smugly upon receiving a duplicate Silla-era golden crown from South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Trump jetted off again to the US, crown in tow, as soon as he had wrapped up his talks with Chinese language President Xi Jinping. 

Xi, the actual star of this yr’s APEC summit, in the meantime, made his push for a “Free Commerce Space of the Asia Pacific,” presenting himself because the mastermind of a brand new worldwide order that may substitute our crumbling present one. 
 
Trump and Xi met for the primary time in six years at Gimhae Air Base in Busan at 11 am on Oct. 30. Throughout their summit, which ran for round 100 minutes, the 2 international locations reached a truce: Trump supplied to chop fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese language items in half and retracted different looming further tariffs, whereas China promised to halt the circulation of precursors for fentanyl to the US, to droop controls on uncommon earths, and to purchase US soybeans and different farm merchandise.
 
The significance of this summit lies in what was not publicly disclosed. On Sept. 29, the US Division of Commerce’s Bureau of Business and Safety introduced that “any entity that’s a minimum of 50% owned by a number of entities on the Entity Checklist or the Army Finish-Consumer Checklist will itself robotically be topic to Entity Checklist/MEU Checklist restrictions.” This transfer would have seen the variety of Chinese language firms underneath US restrictions surge from 1,200 to round 20,000.
 
China started its counterattack on Oct. 9, asserting that any objects that comprise 0.1% of Chinese language uncommon earths can be topic to export controls. This was essentially an edict that will require exporters to have licenses when it got here to all uncommon earths, uncommon earth refining know-how and lithium-ion batteries.
 
If China, the world’s largest uncommon earths producer, controlling nearly 90% of all provide, had applied this measure, it could have had all the world’s high-tech manufacturing business wrapped round its finger. The US balked on the prospect, and on the Trump-Xi summit, finally agreed to pause for one yr the measure proposed by its Commerce Division that will have expanded the variety of Chinese language companies dealing with restrictions. In return, China additionally agreed to pause for a yr its export controls on uncommon earths, inserting the sword it was brandishing again in its sheath.
 
China tried to provide the US a style of its personal medication with its technique of inserting restrictions on uncommon earths exports. Because the US fought its “struggle on terror” following the Sept.11 assaults in 2001, it monopolized the energy of sanctions by weaponizing interdependence: international locations that had been branded as worldwide norms-disobeyers had been kicked out of networks for worldwide finance, the web and superior know-how.
 
Nevertheless, this time, China weaponized its management over uncommon earths, the small however mighty components indispensable for superior know-how all over the world, forcing the US to withdraw its sanctions on China, which had been applied on nationwide safety grounds. In different phrases, Trump gained’t have the ability to get his approach with China by threatening 100% tariffs anymore. 
 
From China’s standpoint, this was a historic second marking the tip of an unequal treaty and leveling the taking part in discipline with the US. In fact, China can not use its uncommon earths sources as a negotiating card ceaselessly. Whereas slamming China’s weaponization of its uncommon earths, the US declared that it could be a part of its allies to make a uncommon earths provide chain that would eclipse China’s affect inside two to 5 years — although China has expressed doubts concerning the Trump administration’s skill to take action, given its penchant for bullying allies. 

Even China’s invitation to Trump, asking him to go to Beijing in April 2026, was made with particular calculations in thoughts. All through his Asia tour, Trump made no effort to cover his needs to fulfill North Korean chief Kim Jong-un and tried to woo Kim to the desk by referring to North Korea as a “nuclear energy” and hinting that the difficulty of sanctions may very well be up for negotiation, however Kim fully shunned all such advances.

South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service has confirmed that North Korea is quietly getting ready for dialogue with the US and reported indications that Pyongyang had hesitated about sending International Minister Choe Son-hui on visits to China and Russia till the final minute, given the opportunity of chief Kim Jong-un assembly with Trump.

Contemplating that Kim had severely thought-about that assembly, his eventual choice to place it off for now seems to have been influenced by China. The Chinese language might have been involved that if Trump had been to fulfill with Kim instantly after the US-China summit, Xi’s diplomatic accomplishments can be overshadowed within the ensuing media circus.

China can also have satisfied Kim that assembly Trump across the time of his go to to China subsequent yr would higher serve North Korea’s pursuits. So Trump’s wooing of Kim was thwarted by a Chinese language stratagem.

On Trump’s return dwelling, he defined that he had been too busy to speak with Kim and promised to come back again. If Trump arranges a gathering with Kim as a part of his go to to China subsequent April, Xi will in all probability come throughout because the orchestrator of the occasion. In such a state of affairs, Trump would both go to Pyongyang or Wonsan on his strategy to China, or Kim would go to Northeast China for his or her assembly.

Diplomatically talking, 2026 might be an necessary yr for Xi, who might want to clinch his subsequent four-year time period in late 2027. He’ll search to place China because the guardian of free commerce and himself because the architect of a brand new world order whereas exerting sway over the Korean Peninsula round Trump’s go to to Beijing in April and internet hosting the APEC summit in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, in November.

On the APEC summit, leaders and businesspeople from all over the world will collect in China, like envoys to the imperial metropole. This theatrical manufacturing will symbolize China as a protected haven in a world rattled by Trump’s mayhem and present China shifting nearer to the “nice rejuvenation” that Xi additionally calls the “Chinese language dream.”

China is taking part in the lengthy sport, however the US is sharply divided, whereas Trump himself is motivated by short-term positive factors. The deadline of the US and China’s “ceasefire” is November 2026, simply earlier than the US midterm elections. And Trump, since returning to the White Home, has been taking part in up the large celebration of the 250th anniversary of the US’ independence on July 4, 2026, when many count on him to behave very similar to a monarch.

Trump bragged that Xi didn’t carry up the difficulty of Taiwan throughout their summit in Gyeongju. However you need to surprise what Trump would possibly conform to if Xi raises Taiwan and different main points throughout their assembly in Beijing subsequent April whereas hinting that he would possibly impose controls on uncommon earths proper earlier than the midterm elections.

President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea shakes arms with US President Donald Trump after giving him a duplicate of a golden crown from the Silla Kingdom at a welcome ceremony held on the Gyeongju Nationwide Museum on Oct. 29, 2025, forward of their bilateral summit. (pool photograph)

Little by little, the US is shedding the leverage it as soon as held over China.

Following the “Made in China 2025” initiative, China has been extra lately utilizing industrial coverage to lift the standard of manufactured items and obtain self-sufficiency in high-tech sectors with the aim of lowering dependence on the US.

Underneath the technique of “twin circulation” introduced in 2020, China sought to concurrently strengthen its dwelling market (home circulation) whereas selling commerce and funding (worldwide circulation). The clear targets of this technique had been to scale back China’s dependence on the world whereas in search of to make the world extra depending on the Chinese language economic system.

China’s transfer from weak spot to energy within the commerce struggle is serving to legitimize Xi’s rule inside China. If not for the battle with Trump, Xi might have by no means managed to attain absolute energy, extending his rule and step by step growing management over society. The Xi Jinping period is sustained by the nervousness and disaster attributable to the US’ makes an attempt to thwart China’s rise and finish the rule of the Chinese language Communist Get together.

Shortly after Deng Xiaoping’s coverage of “reform and opening up,” China grew to become a quasi-ally of the US and for years afterward remained a significant accomplice within the US-led world financial system.

However when the US stepped up efforts to comprise China after the 2008 monetary disaster, triggered by the US subprime mortgage disaster, Xi adopted a posture of clear defiance of the US as he concentrated energy in himself.

Simply as Mao Zedong emphasised the battle with American imperialism, so has Xi constantly leaned into the sense of disaster attributable to US stress and burdened the ensuing safety menace whereas reinforcing his standing as a powerful chief able to resisting stress from the US.

There’s displeasure inside China towards Xi’s lengthy maintain on energy and his tightening grip on society, in addition to the countless purges, actual property disaster, contraction of home demand and youth unemployment. However Xi’s posture as a confident defender towards American “bullying” enjoys common help.

Particularly, Trump’s clumsy makes an attempt to coerce China show the legitimacy of Xi’s drive over the previous 12 years to make China a technological and industrial energy.

Trump and Xi’s relationship could be described as hostile symbiosis. Trump has posted photos of himself carrying a crown on social media, hinting at his want to turn out to be an absolute ruler in imitation of the Chinese language mannequin. Trump has hoarded energy, exploited the unconventional fringe as a “Crimson Guard” and pummeled journalists and lecturers, behaviors that some describe because the US turning into extra like China.

For Chinese language who keep in mind the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the “cultural revolution” that Trump is instigating within the US serves for example of the prevalence of China’s a lot better stability.

When Xi gifted Korean President Lee Jae Myung a Xiaomi smartphone throughout their summit on Nov. 1, Lee quipped, “Is the road safe?” Xi responded, “You may examine if there’s a backdoor.” The feedback had been extensively reported, demonstrating Xi’s simple grace in joking about delicate subjects, in contrast to his predecessors, who at all times appeared to be studying from ready feedback.

When Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China on Sept. 27, 1972, to normalize relations between the 2 international locations, Mao shocked the assembled dignitaries by saying, “If there had been no Japanese invasion of China, there would have been no Communist victory, not to mention at the moment’s talks. That is the dialectic of historical past.”

Supreme leaders can get away with a stunning diploma of candor. Maybe in the future Xi may even get to riff on the dialectic of historical past by saying, “If Trump hadn’t made such a slipshod try to comprise China, I wouldn’t have remained in workplace, nor would China have been capable of eclipse the US.”

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