{"id":3723,"date":"2025-11-04T11:43:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T10:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723"},"modified":"2025-11-04T11:43:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T10:43:27","slug":"trump-does-not-understand-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723","title":{"rendered":"Trump does not understand China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many analysts seemed to be relieved after the recent APEC summit in Korea. The meeting between the American and Chinese presidents, Trump and Xi Jinping turned out to be polite with some concrete results \u2013 at least on the surface. President Trump gave his meeting with Xi the grading \u201cfantastic\u201d and the score \u201d12 out of 10\u201d. This strong statement certainly does not point at a good American understanding of Chinese culture, politics and strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Different time horizons \u2013 short-term versus long term<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have described many times before in different articles that President Trump and China\u2019s leadership \u2013 personified by President Xi Jinping \u2013 often use to apply different time horizons in their policy measures or strategies. Trump usually acts short-term oriented and may be open for sudden policy changes whereas Chinese decision makers can be both short-term and long-term oriented simultaneously, even the same person or institution. Obviously, Donald Trump does not look very familiar with this distinct Chinese attitude.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump\u2019s tariffs against the rest of the world favor without doubt China\u2019s long-term ambitions to dominate the global trade system at some point. When Xi in Korea pleaded for the protection of multilateral trade, he certainly mainly had in mind China\u2019s strategically strived future pole position in international trade influence (see also my previous comments on this topic in some of my blogs: <a href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3702\">https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3702<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3693\">https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3693<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?paged=17\">https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?paged=17<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The strategic trade message to the rest of the world: <em>China first instead of America first!<\/em> It can be recognized that President Trump does not (want to?) understand that his tariffs are the best instrument to support China\u2019s long-term objective to become the leading power in global trade policy, preferably via the WTO. Long-term trade objectives are &nbsp;&nbsp;considered to be more important than short-term frictions with the U.S.!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>China applies also short-term trade policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can conclude by now that China\u2019s current political leadership has learned to live with Trump\u2019s erratic trade policy &#8211; from month to month or even from year to year. In the nearer future, China knows about the power of its rare earths in forthcoming trade negotiations with the U.S. Trump\u2019s recent sensitive deal with China to secure U.S. production of high-tech products may receive again a new pattern or content one year from now at the latest \u2013 originated by China or the U.S. Who knows? Unfortunately, uncertainty will remain in place for the EU as well. And in the background, the risk of a bursting AI bubble still exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lnu.se\/api\/media\/12178-fw350fh461cy28cw350ch350\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:94px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Hubert Fromlet<\/em><\/strong> <br>Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many analysts seemed to be relieved after the recent APEC summit in Korea. The meeting between the American and Chinese presidents, Trump and Xi Jinping turned out to be polite with some concrete results \u2013 at least on the surface. President Trump gave his meeting with Xi the grading \u201cfantastic\u201d and the score \u201d12 out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Trump does not understand China - China Research<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump does not understand China - China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many analysts seemed to be relieved after the recent APEC summit in Korea. The meeting between the American and Chinese presidents, Trump and Xi Jinping turned out to be polite with some concrete results \u2013 at least on the surface. President Trump gave his meeting with Xi the grading \u201cfantastic\u201d and the score \u201d12 out [&hellip;]\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-04T10:43:26+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-04T10:43:27+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/lnu.se\/api\/media\/12178-fw350fh461cy28cw350ch350\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723\",\"name\":\"Trump does not understand China - China Research\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-04T10:43:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-04T10:43:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/3c3b67b85e96d1cc89d09dda3a189b38\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/\",\"name\":\"China Research\",\"description\":\"A discussion forum on emerging markets, mainly China  \u2013                                          from a macro, micro, institutional and corporate angle.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/3c3b67b85e96d1cc89d09dda3a189b38\",\"name\":\"Hubert Fromlet\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?author=126\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trump does not understand China - China Research","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=3723","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Trump does not understand China - China Research","og_description":"Many analysts seemed to be relieved after the recent APEC summit in Korea. 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