Global power, rivalry, and A.I.; a preview of the U.S./China summit

Terry Gross (0:00)

This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. Some combustible topics are likely to be addressed at tomorrow's summit between President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping, like controls on AI safety, the war in Iran, tariffs, the trade war, and China's export of rare earth metals and rare earth magnets. A subject sure to be on the minds of the Chinese and the Americans is the possibility of China invading Taiwan and whether the US would arm and defend the island nation, possibly getting us into an armed conflict with China.

Whether or not anything is resolved at the summit, what's said, how it's interpreted, and what's left unsaid will matter. Beijing is trying to take over the position the US has long held as the global leader and they may be getting closer to achieving that goal. To help us understand all this and set the stage for the summit, our guest is Rush Doshi, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Director of its China Strategy Initiative. He's the author of the book The Long Game, China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order. He's also an Assistant Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. During the Biden administration, Doshi was the Deputy Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council. In that capacity, he negotiated with his Chinese counterpart and helped arrange summits with China. We recorded our interview yesterday.

Rush Doshi, welcome back to Fresh Air.

Rush Doshi (1:35)

Thanks. It's great to be with you.

Terry Gross (1:36)

So Trump likes to say that President Xi likes him, that they get along. How do you think Xi would describe Trump?

Rush Doshi (1:45)

Well, what's interesting is these two leaders have had dealings going back all the way to 2016, 2017, really, is when that starts. And I think President Xi has always seen President Trump as unpredictable and also solicitous at times. President Trump is quite prone to flattering President Xi, just as he's prone to flattering Vladimir Putin. He has a tendency to flatter autocrats. So I think President Xi sees him as potentially dangerous in his unpredictability, but also manageable if President Xi is able to kind of appeal to his ego. And what we see between the two leaders now is a changed dynamic. You know, in the first term, President Trump felt very confident in pushing China, but at the same time, he always believed in stability in the relationship and wouldn't always push too far. This time around, I think President Xi feels like he has the upper hand, and President Trump feels like he has maybe a weaker hand than President Xi.

Terry Gross (2:37)

Why?

Rush Doshi (2:38)

Well, the big reason why is because of what happened last year. President Trump took tariffs on China up above 140 percent, unprecedented, maybe even reckless.

In doing so, he actually pushed President Xi into a corner.

President Xi had to make a decision. Does he reach for the break glass tool that China has spent decades building? That tool, of course, is its control over the rare earth minerals and magnets that go into every manufacturing supply chain in America. When President Xi reached for that tool and said, we make more than 90 percent of the world's supply and you're not going to get any of it, that was a gun to the head of US manufacturing. Now, President Trump could have seen that coming. Certainly, past presidents knew that that threat could always be deployed, but they didn't push China into a position of having to use the tool.

Here's the thing, if President Xi thinks he has the advantage with that tool, and President Trump thinks that President Xi has the advantage with that tool, then no matter what the reality is, perception becomes the reality. That's why right now, I think Beijing feels like it's tamed President Trump.

Terry Gross (3:39)

Did President Trump fold on anything related to that?

Rush Doshi (3:43)

Oh, very much. So right after President Xi used that tool, President Trump took those tariffs way back down to something closer to 30 percent. After that, essentially did not pursue a number of actions that were in the American economic and technology interest, took a slightly softer line on issues related to Taiwan and human rights. Basically, we saw a complete shift in American policy.

Terry, this is a big deal. This is a moment, I think, where we can feel the tectonic shifts beneath us. What we saw was China received the full force of American economic coercion, and for the first time, could completely turn that force back against the US and get the US to back down. Now, one last thing here. President Trump did have tools and cards that he could use in this situation. He chose not to. He blinked. And I think that President Xi wasn't just playing his cards. He was playing the player, as we might say in poker, and he figured out Trump's number.