American president’s handling of the Sino-US relationship has been widely panned but follows his maxim for negotiations – keep your intentions secret and your opponent confused
Ever since Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign, he has been engaged in an intensifying war of words with the mainstream American media. The fact that he has defied such attacks to become the American president says much about the influence and reach of Twitter, the social networking service that lets him bypass his critics in the more traditional media sphere.
Even as president, Trump’s battle with the mainstream media shows no sign of letting up. Each side hurls accusations and counter-accusations at the other on a daily basis and the credibility of both sides sinks with every volley. Along the way, most of the major news outlets appear to have thrown their claims of objective reporting out of the window, saturating coverage of Trump and his administration with highly aggressive and critical stories. The coverage is slanted through choice of words, characterisations and placement of stories.
People in this part of the world have long relied on mainstream media reports for perspectives on American politics. Those reports are rich in negative adjectives characterising Trump and his policies as erratic, dishonest, compulsive, irrational, unpredictable, provocative, confrontational or even mad.
At first glance, Trump appears to fit such descriptions, particularly when it comes to international diplomacy and the way he has handled complex Sino-US ties, one of the world’s most important bilateral relationships.
He began with fiery campaign rhetoric targeting Chinese exports and the yuan, then, unfathomably, he escalated the tension soon after his election (but before his inauguration) by taking a phone call from the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen in December, thus breaking a long-standing diplomatic norm and risking setting back relations with China big time.
Back then, he appeared unperturbed, even suggesting he would use the one-China principle as a bargaining chip. Yet, just weeks later on February 8, Trump sent a letter to President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) promising to develop a constructive relationship. He told Xi in a phone call on February 10 that he would commit to the one-China policy after all.
