President Trump is confused over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attitude toward Hong Kong’s “umbrella” protest movement.
Trump appears to believe that Xi is open to real compromise with the protesters and that kindly American nudging towards that objective will be constructive. Nothing is further from the truth.
Trump on Thursday tweeted: “If President Xi would meet directly and personally with the protesters, there would be a happy and enlightened ending to the Hong Kong problem. I have no doubt!” That tweet followed a Wednesday evening tweet in which Trump referred to Xi as “a great leader” who could “quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem.”
I suspect Trump’s heart is in the right place on this. He believes his good personal relationship with Xi enables his kind nudging of the Chinese leader into a compromise. As with most matters of foreign policy, Trump views this issue through the prism of a business deal: that good faith and mutual compromise can secure mutual benefit. And that’s a good rule in dealings between most democracies. Because of the particular paranoia that defines North Korea, it’s also the best guiding principle for Trump’s diplomacy with that nation.
But it most definitely is not the principle with Xi, especially on Hong Kong.
For Xi, there can be no outcome from Hong Kong except that which shows Beijing supreme. The Chinese Communist Party, and Xi in particular, views Hong Kong as a test for their future: a test as to whether they can corral anti-party elements into compliance or whether those elements will prove that they can get away with undercutting the party’s order. Xi is determined to supplant the U.S.-led democratic international order with Beijing’s feudal mercantilism. He cannot show weakness.
In that sense, Trump’s kind nudging actually makes it more likely that Xi will crush Hong Kong. It encourages Xi to show that only he and the party decide what happens on Chinese soil. To accept American mediation efforts, even indirectly, would be to forsake his guiding philosophy.
We cannot discount the multigenerational perspective with which Xi and his inner circle view their global project. They measure success in decades — not weeks, months, or years. Xi’s ideological whisperer and Standing Committee colleague, Wang Huning, is almost certainly now describing Hong Kong as Xi’s moment of destiny and not in a good way.
This is not to say that Trump cannot influence Xi on Hong Kong. But as our editorial notes, he must do so with unmistakable resolve: supporting freedom and warning that any smashing of the protest movement will mean international awareness to Xi’s true nature.
Playing nice with Xi here isn’t just delusional, it’s dangerous.
