MAGA and its China Troubles

The US upsets its old friends, but China doesn’t win new ones. They’re parallel weaknesses, with America having the upper hand, but things could turn around if Beijing finds its compass. Washington needs more stable ties.

It’s still unclear how the US wants to reconcile its new face and posture at home and abroad. The two are misaligned and are creating many problems. The MAGA voices appear to offer slogans and solutions in foreign affairs, galling abroad but with echoes and sound bites in America’s big belly.

During the May 29-31 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called out allies for freeloading and profiteering at the expense of US taxpayers’ generosity. He seemed keen on deliberately irking partners and allies to seek approval in the Midwest.

The substance is reasonable: allies should contribute more because the US can’t do it. But the tone and word choices may sound gratuitously insulting.

Old partners might not forget the slight and may wonder whether the partnership still exists. New partners may believe their new friendship is also disposable if the US changes its mind. Reliability is the backbone of any relationship. Everyone knows that ties can be strained and broken, but one expects them to break only under extreme duress and with satisfactory explanations, not with a flippant turn of phrase.

This approach may not have broad consensus even at home, and thus is even trickier. Plus, there is his message in Asia.

Hegseth praised the new stability with China. At the same time, he sought increases in defense expenditures in the region and the strengthening of bilateral alliances aimed at China. He thus sent convoluted signals beneath a veneer of apparent clarity. The allies may wonder, as did the Japanese defense minister, whether the US will stand by its allies or is just seeking to sell more of its weapons (manufactured with Chinese components as well)?

The new dominant US foreign policy ideas, synthesized with MAGA, pit America against everyone else. US interests have to come first, before others. This breaks the idea of the American dream for the whole world. Anyone could become American, and any country could become like America, with America’s support.

Certainly, with the past “American Dream,” setting priorities between the USA and the world has always been tricky, and it’s trickier now with America’s mounting debt. The MAGA idea, setting clear priorities, America first, then everybody else, makes a hierarchy clear. But they are creating new problems without any visible fix for the American dream’s troubles so far.

On the other hand, these contradictions should create many issues for America, but the fallout has so far been limited because there’s no viable competition against America. China should offer an alternative, but it doesn’t. No one is really rallying around China.

Different geometry

What emerges is a contrast of weaknesses that doesn’t create stable ties. It builds loose aggregations that could shift with the wind, especially if US reliance on Chinese industrial imports isn’t reversed. US reliance on China’s imports signals Beijing’s centrality to the world. Then, countries now leaning on America could swing to China tomorrow if China gets its political act together.

China is selfish, maybe even more so than America, but it’s there in Asia, and geography won’t change.

Asian countries know how to deal with one another; they have for centuries and could for a few more decades. Moreover, at least publicly, Chinese rhetoric may be less crude and pushy than American rhetoric for now. These elements favor policies in which each country is ready to do business with America, but also to leave the US if it becomes slightly inconvenient.

Foreign policy becomes not a commitment to a vision of the world but a mere price for short-term returns. You provide this service for this price, and it’s okay. If the price changes, the service provider will change too, with no feelings attached.

In this environment, China has no global vision to offer either, but it is not making inroads because it doesn’t provide any services, only causes trouble in the international environment. In recent years, it chose one after another troubling lost causes: Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea—countries with too many enemies.

Beijing did so because it seems to have lost sight of the overall picture of international affairs and has focused solely on its dispute with the US. If Russia, Iran, or Venezuela are pushing against America, then they deserve Chinese backing. But this is simply misreading the big picture.

Marriages can be dangerous

On the other hand, America’s treatment of Europe, its main partner, with which it has been practically married for over a century, sends scary messages to new partners elsewhere. If the US dumped Europe, it would dump India or Japan too at the drop of a hat.

Marriages can indeed turn bad; husbands and wives can kill each other, so even the possibility of danger should be carefully avoided. The new Asian date (who is very conservative) won’t be thrilled by what he sees. He’ll think that, for the US, it’s just a fling. It’ll go along as long as no one or anything else appears.

These messages threaten US long-term stability and turn the world into a giant roller coaster in which the US, the heaviest car on the tracks, could derail and crash first.

America’s Berlusconi?

Then there is America’s domestic turmoil. Everyone sees what he recognizes, and that it may be a mistake. To me, the present US situation may resemble Berlusconi’s time in Italy. Although I could be mistaken, the situation seems as follows:

Silvio Berlusconi shaped Italian politics as prime minister or leader of the opposition for over 20 years. During his tenure, he gradually eroded and ultimately shattered many unwritten rules and norms of the Italian post-WWII republic. Unwritten rules are even more important than written ones because they are a testament to consensus, or lack thereof. Breaking unwritten rules, therefore, is tantamount to exposing deep social and cultural fissures that will require considerable time, effort, and a new cultural consensus to rebuild.

Some norms were surely outdated and needed revision. Still, the destruction he left in his wake didn’t correspond to a parallel effort to build a new value system to improve society and politics overall. Many parties and leaders seemed to follow Berlusconi’s political path, believing it was the key to victory.

Parties were turned into a leader’s private property; deliberation was gradually expelled from parliament; and eventually the once-sacred institutions were degraded, no longer central to guiding the country and its debates. Parliamentarians no longer had the intellectual heft or the management experience required before Berlusconi’s time. In fact, Berlusconi’s influence lasted as long as he lived. The gateway, once opened, no longer closes. Things got worse.

Trump’s influence could be similarly long-lasting. He first came to power in 2016, and now he may step down in 2028 – 12 long years in American politics. But he may remain influential even after that, even if no longer President.

He is similarly breaking norms and unwritten rules of US political and social life. It’s hard to imagine things returning to “normal” once he’s out of power. Italy didn’t go back to ‘normal’ after Berlusconi; the US might not either. Then it’s hard to imagine what the future will hold for the US.

Yet Italy is no superpower, and Berlusconi ruled the country during very peaceful times.

America is the only real superpower, engaged in a bitter rivalry with China and backing two wars, in Iran and Russia, directly or indirectly. The consequences of American confusion could be massive for everyone.

Plus, the present US-China rivalry is much murkier than the one between the US and the USSR. Then it was very clear: private property, wealth, freedom, and religion were on one side; state property, poverty, repression, and atheism were on the other.

China may be oppressive, but not really anti-private property, and neither is it poor nor so utterly anti-religion. The main sticking point is very practical but also convoluted to present and explain – too much trade surplus. As for its territorial claims, they may also be blurred. Chinese neighbors seem, at times, not so squeamish about their disputes with China. In the past 30 years, the temperature of bilateral rows has not been constant but has depended on many other factors.

Then yes, China should have massive leeway to move into the cracks the US is creating. It doesn’t. It may be proof of two things: of China’s own problems, but also that Trump, despite everything, is a catalyst to something real, mainly that the world needs a different order.