12 hours ago 3

China May Actually Prefer ‘Businessman Trump’ to Run-of-the-Mill Neocon Globalist US President

China's Embassy in Washington has announced Beijing's readiness for a conflict with the US, whether it be a "tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war." But despite tensions, the Trump administration's business-oriented approach to politics may still be preferable to China, especially compared to the ideologized alternatives. Here's why.

“There’s a big difference between businessmen-turned-politician like Trump and a career politician,” Dr. Wang Dong, director of Peking University’s Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, told Sputnik, commenting on the future of the China-US relationship now that Donald Trump is back in charge.

“Career politicians often are willing to pay whatever cost to achieve a certain goal,” Wang said, recalling George W. Bush’s ironclad commitment to Taiwan as an example of traditional US neoconservative, ideologized thinking.

“But for a businessman, that’s insane, because you always think about the cost of achieving a goal and you’re only willing to pay the lowest possible cost. Trump’s ‘America First’ is to a big extent about cutting expenditures outside the US, and the current administration is not willing to pay for something like ‘defending democracies’,” the academic explained.

Containers are loaded onto a cargo ship at the Tianjin port in China - Sputnik International, 1920, 06.03.2025

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Trump’s “top priority is not containment of China or geopolitical competition. The term ‘strategic competition’ almost never appeared in his speeches, remarks or online posts. I couldn’t recall any one single mention of that,” the observer pointed out.

“Yes, in his team there are establishment hawks like [Secretary of State] Rubio. But I think this is not Trump’s way of looking at things. In my opinion, he is not so much interested in the military competition, the most important thing for him is the issue of trade balance,” Wang stressed.

“Trump wants to use tariffs as leverage to bargain with China, not to launch a full-scale trade war. And that is exactly what we see happening now,” the observer said.

Semi-conductor chips are assembled and organized on a workbench before a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a Nanotronics manufacturing center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. - Sputnik International, 1920, 19.02.2025

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Wang believes that China and the US now have a window of about 3-6 months to try and find common ground on trade issues.

If successful, the two sides might return to the framework offered by the “Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement” signed in early 2020, before Covid hit. After that, long-standing challenges in the bilateral relations could be addressed.

Of course, a failure of negotiations could result in the Trump administration going back to the usual China pressure and 'containment' policy, including by playing the Taiwan card, Wang believes.