Does China want Trump to win in 2024?
February 17, 2024
Agathe Demarais is a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a Foreign Policy columnist. She recently argued in that journal (with a clear anti-Trump tilt)-that China is Rooting for Trump
Although her arguments are framed within the standard Global Western casting of China as a revisionist threat to the US-led ordering of the world, the case advanced is thought provoking.
Demarais maintains it is likely Trump would take actions discouraging trans-Atlantic cooperation between the US and Europe aimed at containing China which would surely please Beijing. Less directly, Trump: may assist Chinas project to displace the global dominance of the US Dollar over time; and may boost Chinas global access to vital new-energy minerals. Finally, she argues that increased US export controls directed against Beijing under Trump would harm America (once again) and foster green-tech retrenchment in the US. China, meanwhile, would continue as a world leader in solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles and all of this would help China to influence global standards for future clean-tech goods culminating in an all-around win for Beijing.
Speaking of revisionism, it is useful to remember that more revisionism can also be good for you. Thanks to Galileo advancing a Copernican-based revisionist view of our Solar System, the fundamental idea that the universe pivots around planet Earth was advantageously laid to rest.