Xi vs. Trump: Round One Goes to China
Columnist and China hawk Gordon Chang said President Trump did not achieve much during his trip to China, in an interview with Forbes, saying it made the U.S. look weak for the president not to walk out when Xi Jinping mentioned the "Thucydides Trap" at the welcoming ceremony. "I think Trump just should have stopped the summit right there and said: If Xi Jinping, if you can't respect me, if you can't do this, then there's no point in talking," Chang said. "Xi Jinping needs the U.S. far more than we need him." "This is only one round of a 15-round match, which won't be decided until September 24, when Xi Jinping is scheduled to come to Washington," he said. "But you have to look at this and say round one goes to China." "We have seen Trump push the Chinese around this year. You start in January 3 with Venezuela, you see what's happening in Cuba right now, and of course, we all know what's going on in Iran." "Trump is taking Chinese proxies off the board, and Xi Jinping is helpless," Chang said. "So Xi Jinping's arrogance in the summit, I think, is a reflection of frustration and a need to show that he is as strong as Trump, but he's not." He suggested, "I think that essentially Trump let him get away with it, but Trump is going to bring down the hammer." GORDON CHANG: President Trump gets some credit for this summit. I don't think he should have gone, but he does get some credit, and that is: almost all summits are canned. In other words, everything has been decided before the foreign leader arrives on Chinese soil. This one has not been the case. There were substantive discussions going on, and Trump has been trying to accommodate China to reach some agreements with China, some way of going forward. Now, I think that's futile for a lot of reasons. I think that we shouldn't be trying to do that right now for a lot of reasons, but give the guy credit for trying it. The reason why I feel we shouldn't go down this road is because we've gone down this road for
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 12 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ China rain-lashed as Trump departs — Financial Times — World
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