Trump and Xi talked about trade, but a Chinese malaise haunts America and stalls bilateral ties. To break the stalemate, Beijing should perhaps address the issue of democracy.
It’s not ideal, and it’s not a deal, but at least after scores of tweets, statements, and public wailings, a call broke the months-long standoff. US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, talked on the phone. They agreed to hold trade negotiations, thus boosting the market, although no clear conclusion is in sight.
Yet, behind all this, the United States has many open wounds with China, which cannot be easily closed. In fact, it is not even clear whether America truly wants to close them. It almost seems like an existential malaise. It’s certainly about America and its domestic concerns, and it’s about China.
In recent years, there were two occasions when the US could have left China in a challenging position but chose not to. The first was in January 2020 with COVID. America could have immediately shut its borders with China, halted all trade and non-trade exchanges, just as it did in 2003 with SARS.
By doing so, the US would have achieved its promised decoupling. China would have spiraled into a severe economic and, thus, political crisis, and the “China problem” would have been effectively resolved. Yet, the US didn’t do it for unclear reasons.
Another opportunity arose in June 2023 with the insurrection of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. When Prigozhin started his march on Moscow, America could have declared victory over Russia, halted military engagements, and waited for the political crisis in Russia to destabilize the country, thereby weakening China, which was hooked on Russia. Once again, the US did not act strategically in realpolitik terms.
It proves that America is not hell-bent on destroying China but underlines the US’s deep-seated discomfort. This discomfort could erupt sooner or later unless the pressure is at least partially, possibly radically, relieved.
It shows that America lacks a grand strategic plan to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), ruling the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, it also displays that there are no strategic plans because while the US does not want to bring the PRC down, it also does not want to coexist peacefully with it as it is.
It’s a malaise that doesn’t burst into flames but remains low, cooking America, China, and everyone around it. It seems like what the US experienced in the late 1930s with Japan or Nazi Germany. It couldn’t bear them either, but it could not openly support China against the Japanese invasion or Great Britain against Hitler.
Pearl Harbor brought the malaise to an explosion. But perhaps, even without the daring Japanese raid, something else would have triggered the blast. What could be Pearl Harbor now?
The Problem of Democracy
Four concerns trouble China, as I wrote, and they contribute to the US malaise. The most significant one perhaps is about democracy. The CPC has a troubled history with democracy—something like an underground river, surfacing and disappearing but always running through the party’s veins. The PRC fears being unable to control democracy and that it could bring chaos to China. But democracy, liberty, has been many party members’ aspiration before Mao took power, at the beginning and after the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), with the Tiananmen protests (1989), and possibly in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Democracy consists of both “fake” and “real” elements. The “fake” is about a series of commercial and institutional powers that steer and muzzle the democratic system. The “real” elements are about genuine freedom of opinion, though even freedom of opinion has both real and fake aspects. Only “credible” opinions carry weight; those outside official credibility are disregarded.
There may be elements that China could use to approach its democratic political reform without starry-eyed idealism. Democracy serves a specific function in modern market economies.
Market economies do not grow linearly—there are crises, and businesses must shut down because they fail. When an economic crisis occurs, it can turn into social turmoil. To prevent the social crisis from becoming political, modern democratic systems hold elections: the incumbent cabinet resigns, takes the blame for the past turmoil, a new leader is elected, and the system resets.
It is a system of limited accountability for power, much like corporations. If a company goes bankrupt, the owner is not personally liable for its debts. This allows the system to renew itself and keep trying. The best entrepreneurs went through a series of failures without going to prison for their debts, as they conversely did in ancient times. The Ford cars would never have been born had Henry Ford been personally liable for his company’s bankruptcies.
It is an efficient system for managing crises while maintaining social and political stability. The key to modern democracy is to limit its leaders’ political responsibility, protecting their safety. In authoritarian systems, a leader who loses his post loses his life.
How can this system be adapted to China, addressing American deep-seated concerns without creating massive fractures and instability in China? Once upon a time, when US-China ties were good, Beijing could have experimented and sold its project to Washington. Now, it’d be far more complicated.
It is the bigger issue to consider between China and the countries interested in or worried about its rise and development.
