Beijing's fears after Trump fills key posts with China hawks

 

US President-elect Donald Trump, alongside Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, applaud during the third day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17, 2024. [AFP]

Donald Trump's cabinet of China hawks have likened the nation's communist rulers to Nazis, levelled Covid conspiracies at them, declared a Cold War, and flagged much greater military support for Taiwan.

That is likely to leave Beijing watching warily, experts say, as the United States president-elect surrounds himself with a litany of hardliners who spit strong rhetoric and back confrontation with China.

Chief among them is Trump's choice for secretary of state -- Florida Senator Marco Rubio -- who is under sanctions by Beijing for his support for causes from Xinjiang to Hong Kong.

"Hawks like these are not only very tough in dealing with China issues, but also very likely to act without regard for the consequences," Wu Xinbo, a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, told AFP.

"Compared to the Biden administration, the exchanges and dialogue mechanisms between China and the United States will be greatly compressed and reduced (under Trump)," Wu said.

Rubio was a key sponsor of the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of all goods from the northwestern Xinjiang region unless companies offer verifiable proof that production did not involve such a violation.

In a 2023 speech, the senator said that in the fight to untangle the US economy from China's, "success or our failure is going to define the 21st century".

"They have leverage over our economy. They have influence over our society. They have an army of unpaid lobbyists here in Washington," he warned.

Analysts said his appointment could complicate US diplomatic outreach to China.

"Rubio is pretty tough on China," Taipei-based security analyst J. Michael Cole told AFP.

Sanctions against him -- which prohibit travel to China -- "could create problems for summits where he is expected to negotiate with his Chinese counterparts, not to mention visits by the secretary of state to China", he added.

New 'Cold War'

And the Florida senator is far from the only China hawk to be tipped for a top job in the new administration.

Cole points to Trump's pick to head the CIA, John Ratcliffe -- who has stated that he believes that Covid-19 was leaked from a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan -- as another key hardliner.

Tapped for White House national security advisor -- one of the most powerful jobs in any administration -- is Congressman Mike Waltz, who has declared that the United States is in "a Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party".

Waltz has said America must learn from the experience of Ukraine's war with Russia "by addressing the threat of the CCP and arming Taiwan now".

He has called for a renewed "Monroe Doctrine" to counter alleged Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere.

And he accused Beijing of conducting a "1930s-era, Nazi Germany-sized military build-up" to push its interests in the Pacific.

This rhetoric is music to the ears of many in Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing has never ruled out using force to retake.

"Rubio is a long-term Taiwan friend, and he is very, very friendly to Taiwan," Fang-yu Chen, assistant professor of political science at Soochow University in Taipei, told AFP.

"We can expect that there will be a lot of Taiwan-friendly policies," he said.

That could include, Chen suggested, "more normalisation of the official contact and normalisation of more working level interactions between Taiwan and the US."

Trump the decider

That could enrage China, which has stepped up military exercises around Taiwan in recent years -- often in response to unofficial exchanges between US officials and Taipei's leaders.

Beijing has repeatedly declined to comment on "personnel appointments" by the incoming president, insisting its policy towards Washington is "consistent and clear".

And Fudan University's Wu told AFP that officials may be biding their time to see what the incoming president has in mind.

Trump has vowed to slap 60 per cent tariffs on all Chinese goods coming into the United States.

But he has also touted his admiration for China's leader Xi Jinping and hinted that his tough talk could bring Beijing to the negotiating table.

"Does Trump want to reach a deal with China, or completely break up with China and move towards complete confrontation?" Wu said.

"I think Trump's attitude is crucial."