Trump’s claims about China’s purported Geneva talks violation

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OPINION

By Joshua Kingdom

On June 2, China publicly responded for the first time to President Trump’s comments that Beijing was acting contrary to the agreement entered by the two countries in Geneva earlier last month.

Beijing’s position was explained by the spokesperson of the country’s Ministry of Commerce (MoC), He Yongqian.

Being that the pronouncements by the two parties are contradictory, it can be confusing to establish who has, in fact, conducted themselves improperly, something that the rest of this OP-ED deals with.

To begin with, the language adopted by either administration tells a lot. On one hand, you have the MoC statement which is substantive in its claims and on the other, you have nothing but generic accusations.

Specifically, Beijing pointed out that the US had, despite the understanding between Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice Premier He Lifeng, gone on to restrict the export of artificial intelligence chips and trade in chips with the Republic of China, as well as revoking Chinese students' visas, among other measures. In the case of America, however, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer could only afford to say that “The United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance.”

One would have liked to say that Washington is treading carefully in the spirit of diplomacy, except for the fact that the same leadership has not been known to act as such in recent months. They did not do so with Ukraine or South Africa, so it would be a breakaway from a well-established pattern if they were to act differently in this case, all of a sudden. Moreover, away from the fact that there has been no particular clarification on the facts, the rhetoric itself has been combative.

In a “truth” that kicked off this whole controversy on Truth Social, thus, Mr Trump directly insinuated that it was to be expected that China would act dishonestly. His very words were; “China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” If he had a bomb to drop, there is no doubt that he would have proceeded to do so without any hesitation.

But it is also not that the White House is causing upheaval for no reason; it is just that its rationales are petty and selfish, to say the least. We know, for instance, that the presiding Commander in Chief has been known to apportion blame to another whenever things do not go his way, with China famously occupying this position for most of the time.

This time round, Congress has just passed a rather unpopular law which strips essential benefits from a good number of people that voted Republican in the previous elections, and so he badly needed a distraction.

Another absurd but very real scenario is that Donald Trump has long portrayed himself as a deal-maker. Unfortunately for him, President Xi’s philosophy contradicts this stance since the Asian politician believes in systems. The result of this as Bert Hofman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore put it, has been that the Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has kept a healthy distance from the trade war and instead encouraged in-line officials to spearhead the negotiation process to the frustration of his American counterpart.

By artificially manufacturing friction, hence, the US hopes to catch Xi Jinping’s ear. No wonder, following these developments, USA bureaucrats have been pushing for a call with the CCP head.

The irony, of course, is that there was one such conversation on January 17, this year, the theme of which laid the foundations for the Geneva talks i.e. the very talks that the United States of America is already going back on. Why pretend to care about the future whilst presently acting in bad faith then?

Honestly, this conduct is reflective of the usual bullying from the west that we are now accustomed to. The United States forgets, though, that the stakes are not in its favour on this one, and, Stephen Olson, a visiting fellow at the Yusof Ishak Institute, agrees. By the time it awakens, things might be too little, too late.

The writer is a research fellow at the Sino-Uganda Research Centre.