The Tribune

EACH week brings a new and different Donald Trump departure from established and accepted norms. There are outrageous tweets, inconsistent and even contradictory interviews, claims that the establishment American media almost immediately brands as lies, and now, further evidence of personal behaviour that would be regarded as rude at a neighbourhood dinner party.

At the G20 summit meeting in Hamburg earlier this month, Trump, in the presence of most of the other heads of state of the world’s leading nations, chose to wander over to Russian President Putin and engage in what The Washington Post has now described as almost an hour long private meeting with only the Russian leader’s interpreter present to witness the exchange. It is hard to imagine such behaviour working to the advantage of the United States.

Among the witnesses to the Trump-Putin conversations was Chinese President Xi Jinping. One can only wonder what he must have thought as he looked on. But as America drifts steadily toward an isolationist, xenophobic posture under Trump, China continues to work toward positions of greater influence around the world.

American scholars and journalists continue to examine Chinese overseas behaviour, partly to divine their true objectives. For the most part, their conclusion has been that the Chinese seek economic influence in the form of market development and investment opportunities. The consensus seems to be that while the Chinese seek support for their political initiatives in the United Nations and its subsidiary organisations, there is not presently a push for military or overwhelming political influence outside the regions surrounding their own borders.

Their recent aggressive behaviour in the matter of tiny islets in the South China stands in sharp contrast to an seemingly more militarily and politically benign posture in most of the rest of the world.

American academic and Centre for Strategic and International Studies director Scott Kennedy describes Chinese behaviour overseas as a kind of “economic colonialism,” underpinned by frequent close collaboration with local political elites in countries where they invest. Most substantial Chinese overseas investments are accompanied by an influx of Chinese workers.

“In many countries, the presence of these Chinese workers generates intense local resentment,” Kennedy recently told a New York audience. The scholar noted that when the Chinese workers and supervisors collaborate with local counterparts, the results are much more harmonious. When they do not, there is fear, resentment and dwindling popular local support for the very feelings of bilateral friendship the investment was designed to foster in the first place.

Kennedy advances the thesis that in many respects, China and the United States are appearing to move in opposite directions. As the US under Trump blusters about unfair trade deals and insufficient financial commitment by its NATO allies, pulls out of a worldwide climate change pact heralded as visionary less than a year ago, and seems to court adversaries like Putin while disrespecting long-time allies, China is continuing its investment and influence building in many parts of the world.

The Chinese have a long history of trying to manipulate and control their neighbours. China’s neighbours, including Russia, Myanmar and Vietnam, have for decades been wary of Chinese economic might and its huge population of 1.4 billion. Even half a century ago, the Soviet Union and Vietnam, despite being involved respectively in a superpower rivalry and a shooting war with the United States, remained profoundly wary of China.

The New York Times describes the recent ascendancy of Chinese influence in neighbouring Myanmar (formerly Burma), which has enjoyed warm relations recently with the US and hosted two visits by American President Barack Obama in the past five years.

“But the US did little to build on the new relationship, and now the tables have turned. As the Trump administration pays little attention, China is exercising strategic and economic interests that come from geographic proximity, using deep pockets for building billion-dollar infrastructure,” the Times reports.

“And not only Myanmar. Across Southeast Asia, China is energetically bringing nations into its orbit, wooing American friends and allies with military hardware, infrastructure deals and diplomatic attention.”

For the Americans, this would be a wake-up call if they were paying attention. For everyone else, it’s both an opportunity and a cautionary tale.