Transcript

How does China’s leadership view the relationship with the US, and how has that perspective evolved over the years?

How might China seek to take advantage of recent actions by the Trump Administration that have destabilised the international order?

How should Australia respond to shifting US-China dynamics in the Indo-Pacific?

In this episode, Chris Buckley joins Susan Dietz to discuss the evolving relationship between China and the US, including the implications for economic and bilateral ties, and the wider geopolitical dynamics at play in the Indo-Pacific region.

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

Chris Buckley

There's certainly a great deal of wariness and also a conviction that as China rises as a great power, as its economy grows, the United States is going to find that extremely uncomfortable.

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You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific produced by the ANU National Security College.

Susan Dietz

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Susan Dietz, Senior Executive Advisor at the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present. This week, I'm joined by Chris Buckley for a discussion on China's place in the evolving international order and its responses to the policy changes emanating from the Trump White House. To briefly introduce our guest.

Chris Buckley is chief China correspondent for the New York Times and reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei with a focus on politics, social change and security and military issues. Chris grew up in Sydney and as well as studying at the University of Sydney and Renmin University in Beijing is an alumnus of the ANU. He has been reporting on China as a journalist for more than 20 years and it's a great pleasure to be able to host him for this timely and vital conversation. Chris.

Welcome to the podcast.

Chris Buckley

And I should mention that Susan and I are old friends. It's very good to see you again, Susan.

Susan Dietz

Yes, from a long time back in China, no less.

Chris Buckley

many years ago.

Susan Dietz

Chris, I want to start by asking for your thoughts on how the Chinese leadership is responding to the policy changes under President Trump. But I think it would be useful to put some context around China's current approach. I think you'd agree that the Chinese perspective on the US's China policy has been hardening for some time now. For example,

President Xi Jinping's speech at the 20th Party Congress back in 2022 reflected a concern with the far from benign external environment and formally placed security at the forefront of China's domestic as well as foreign policy. So can you give us a sense of the lens through which the Chinese leadership views the relationship with the US and where it might be headed now?

Chris Buckley

Yes, Susan, I think it's very useful to go back even before the 2022 party Congress, because I think sometimes people can get trapped into this notion that the hardening of Chinese policy toward the United States, toward Western countries in general, started under the first Trump administration. And it was a response to the policies emanating from Washington then. But actually it's been a trend that predates Party Congress of 2022 predates the first Trump administration and really begins to emerge even fairly soon after Xi Jinping comes to power. So I think it helps to go back and just remember what kind of leader Xi Jinping was when he came to power in 2012 and what kind of China and what kind of world he was facing then.

And if you go back to 2020, 2012 even, Xi Jinping is getting ready to take power. It's a time when the global financial crisis is just beginning to wane as a major issue.  That has already weakened Chinese perceptions of American strength and policy cohesiveness. We've also been through the war in Iraq and the Arab Spring. There's a number of crises and international incidents even in those years, immediately before Xi Jinping comes to power, which I think begin to shift Chinese official perceptions of the United States. And I think shape Xi Jinping's perceptions in particular.

So if you look at the speeches that he gives, particularly internally, after he comes to power in 2012, even then you can see, I wouldn't call it an outright hostility toward the United States but certainly a great deal of wariness and also a conviction that as China rises as a great power, as its economy grows, the United States is going to find that extremely uncomfortable. And he says very early on in his rule that he doesn't refer the United States explicitly, but he says the other great powers are going to find it very difficult to China, a socialist country, as a peer, great power on the global stage. And that is going to lead to greater contention and friction that we as China have to deal with.

So that's the backdrop that then leads to deepening friction between the two countries, even during the Obama years, but certainly after Donald Trump takes his first term in the White House. And it's during that time that we do see this deepening distrust between the two sides,  beginning over trade issues and economic issues, but then in the later years of the first Trump administration, spilling over into a much more ideological contention   over COVID, over China's ambitions in the world, and a deepening   distrust between the two sides that becomes very much focused on technological competition as well.

So that's all the backdrop that leads us to understand where China, Chinese leadership was when Trump won a second term in the White House last year. They were thinking about all of that when they were beginning to consider what to prepare for a second Trump term.

Susan Dietz

Do you think that they had taken into account the severity of the tariffs that President Trump would impose on them this time around?

Chris Buckley

Well, I don't have a direct line to the central leadership in Zhongnanhai in Beijing these days, but from what we can surmise from leaders' comments, from officials' comments, and also from people in Beijing who we can talk to, all these commentaries we can read, I think the Chinese leadership anticipated that a second Trump term would be very much focused on trade issues and they were expecting tariffs and other protectionist measures directed at China particularly.

Now, whether they expected 10 % or 25 % or heaven knows 145%, I don't think they may entirely anticipated that, but they were getting ready, I think, for a contentious relationship focused on trade issues.

That said, I think they have taken note, and they did take note that, Trump has stated repeatedly that he in some ways admires Xi Jinping as a leader. He sees him as a strong leader. He sees him as somebody who he wants to talk to. And without having any illusions about how far that could carry the relationship, I do think the Chinese leadership was keeping open the door to a conversation with the Trump administration that would be more cordial than we've seen develop since Donald Trump announced these tariffs on China.

And I don't think we can exclude the possibility that eventually the two sides are going to sit down. But I think in the background, the Chinese leadership, particularly Xi Jinping, is always going to have a strong element of wariness or distrust about where Donald Trump wants to take policy, simply because of what they've been through in the first and now the second Trump terms already.

Susan Dietz

And in the meantime, before they do sit down and talk and who knows where that will lead in terms of   what kind of a modus vivendi I suppose they can have, this program of tariffs that President Trump has put into effect not only on China but on US allies and partners and pretty much the entire world.

Do you think that there is opportunity here for China? The narrative at the moment is that China won't back down from what Trump has imposed at the moment, that this is all about bullying and that China is the one who actually respects the international order as we understand it. Do you think there is an opportunity here for China either to improve its relations with US partners as they assess or reassess where their interests best lie and more broadly how it might play out for China's wider strategic ambitions, not only in the region but globally.

Chris Buckley

I think on this question, there may certainly be regions of the world and countries of the world and countries around Asia where China will have opportunities to improve relations, but probably not as much as some people either expect or hope or fear. And I think one dimension of that is one that probably you, Susan, understand better than me, which is China's economic presence in the world.

You know, we did see China go through a severe slowdown in recent years. And part of the Chinese leadership's solution to that slowdown has been a ramped up export drive. So I think one element we have to remember about this China-U.S. relationship and about China in the world is that those, massive surge of exports is creating tensions of its own. It's all of this is not simply the creation of the Trump administration.

And those tensions and those pressures are not just felt by the United States. Many other economies in the world, including of course the European Union, the advanced economies of Asia, perhaps even in some ways Australia, are feeling the pressure from these surges of extremely competitive Chinese exports in a growing range of commodities. And so that means that those trade tensions between China and the US in some ways replicated with other other countries in the world. And it's going to take more than sort of smiley diplomatic words from Chinese visiting officials and leaders to resolve those problems. They're not going to go away. I don't see them going away for the major economies in the world, whether that's   the European Union, Japan, or perhaps in its own way, Australia as well. So that's one dimension of this. And then there's the political dimension of it as well.

Susan Dietz

And I think about when China opened the Belt and Road Initiative back in 2013, there was a lot of concern about what that might actually mean in terms of China's trading and investment relationships with countries along that route. And it has, in fact, become a global phenomenon, reaching all the way down to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, up north to the Arctic and across to Africa. And it has participation from pretty much all countries in the world. those sorts of economic and investment forces of competition, I guess, had already been there. So this current relationship or potential relationship with the United States has its own background as well.

Coming back to the relationship between China and Europe and China and Russia, China and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, with the evolving dynamics now as we see how the Trump administration will implement or put into practice its foreign policy and its strategic policies.

These are, however, in the meantime, creating opportunities for China's relationships with these countries. So I wonder if you could expand a bit on the tensions that are already there between China and Europe on the, I guess, on the political side of things, the geopolitical nature of things, because there have already been existing tensions, as you say, on the trade and economic front that on the political front there has also been a problem with how China is perceived in terms of its relationship with Russia.

So I wondered if you could talk a bit about that relationship and how it's affecting the dynamics and the ambitions that China might have in its relationship with Europe.

Chris Buckley

Looking at Europe in particular, think you can see that China-EU economic relationships have been fraught by tensions for some time, but they seem to be reaching a critical moment, in particular because of the anxieties in the biggest European economies. And I'm thinking here in particular of Germany, of Chinese   manufactured exports, which are now becoming increasingly competitive with Germany in particular know, most obviously in the automobile sector in a way which is becoming a much more salient political issue, not just for Germany and for Europe. And we saw that play out in the German election. I think we're seeing it play out in European policy towards China.

So I think although both sides might be looking for ways to steady the relationship in the wake of all the turbulence brought on by the second Trump term, there's an awful lot of obstacles to clearing away those trade tensions in particular because it doesn't seem that China has any real intention to throttle back on its exports when it comes to electric vehicles and other technologies where German manufacturers feel that they are very much facing almost an existential threat from China in some sectors. So there is that. And the other factor you mentioned is with Europe and other parts of the world,

We can go through many issues where there's points of friction, but I think in particular with Europe, Russia really stands out in that China-Russia relationship has been a particular source of contention because, obviously because of the Ukraine war. Now that China-Russian relationship has been growing stronger over the decades. And again, going back to Xi Jinping's early years in power, he made it a priority to establish a strong and cordial relationship with Vladimir Putin. And in fact, in the years even before Xi Jinping came to power, you could see the two leaders sort of looking at each other, understanding that they have to develop a relationship and perhaps learning from each other in some ways as well. So that's a very strong relationship. And I think it's a relationship that may shift in some ways if there's a resolution to the war in Ukraine.

But when it comes to this idea that China may significantly distance itself from Russia in a way which is going to change relations with Europe or with the United States, I think that's a very distant hope. I think the Chinese leadership is very committed to a very strong strategic relationship with Russia, even if they get annoyed with Vladimir Putin when it comes to certain decisions that he's made.

Even if they do have misgivings and doubts about the decision to invade Ukraine, I think there's such a big commitment to that relationship with Russia in Beijing that they're willing to put up with an awful lot to keep Russia on side because that's a central anchor when it comes to offsetting the power of the United States and the Western Bloc, not just this year or next year, but for decades to come. It's a long-term strategic investment.

And so I think from China's perspective, the message to Europe would be that you have to live with this relationship.

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Susan Dietz

And then turning back to the region, as we think about how Trump's attitudes towards Asia and the Indo-Pacific become more more clearly articulated, one of the big questions for those who focus on China's ambitions in the region in particular is how this current dynamic between the US and China and the US's attitude towards allies and partners in our region is affecting China's calculus regarding Taiwan, as well as other territorial issues in the East China Sea as well as the South China Sea.

Chris Buckley

Yeah, speaking in, let's focus on Taiwan first of all.

Susan Dietz

I might interrupt here and say that I'd like to put in an early plug at this point that we'll be recording another podcast in coming days discussing Taiwan specifically. So stay tuned for that. But Chris, please, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Chris Buckley

I'll certainly look forward to listening to that episode as well. I'll put in my my tuba here. I think when it comes to Taiwan, I think from the Chinese leadership's perspective,   they may make tactical adjustments about how they approach Taiwan depending on the state of the Chinese economy, depending on the state of the relationship with the United States.

But that longer term commitment they have to eventually unifying with Taiwan, I think is one that is   very central to the Chinese leadership's view of the world, and certainly to Xi Jinping's. And therefore, it's not one that sort of, it doesn't bounce around so much simply because of the state of the economy or the state of the relationship with the United States. It's driven much more by China's calculus of its own timetable about when it might be possible to move forward with unification. So   I think one dimension of understanding China's calculations about Taiwan and the region in general is that when they're absorbing all of the implications of a Trump administration, I think they take a longer term perspective on this and perhaps other countries, including Australia, as well. And by that, I mean,  

 

If you step back and look at the previous administration, the Biden administration, there was a concerted effort under the Biden administration to build regional relationships across the Asia Pacific, to build up these new alliance structures, essentially to offset or counter China. Well, China's message in the face of that, now that Donald Trump has come to power, look, you can't treat the United States as a reliable power.

They hear one administration, policy will change the next. And therefore the implications of a Trump administration mean that whatever happens, whoever occupies the White House next, China's message to the region is going to be, we're the steadier reliable partner in this region. Washington policies will come and go. You can't trust them. And so I imagine that,   and I expect that some of China's messaging to Taiwan and to other parts of the region is going to be very much focused on that. whoever occupies the White House next, whatever changes happened under Donald Trump in coming years, you can see that the US leadership can't be trusted as your partner in the region. And whether you like it or not, China is going to be the dominating presence in your region for decades to come. And I think that's a message that they're probably going to convey to the people of Taiwan in one way or another as well. We can see that if you, you know, looking at Taiwan recently, they've been dealing with a shifting relationship with the United States, increasing demands from the Trump administration for Taiwan to dramatically increase its defence spending. And then tariffs on Taiwanese goods initially over 30 % and then reduced to 10%. And then also possible threatened tariffs on semiconductors, like a key pillar of Taiwanese economic prosperity and also security. So all of that has introduced a new element of uncertainty into the Taiwan-US relationship as well.   It's early days yet, but it makes sense that China is going to try to exploit the uncertainties and anxieties that those issues create in Taiwan in order to advance its agenda in Taiwan.

Susan Dietz

And I suppose the parallel messaging is being given to countries in the region as well, whether it's North Asia, Southeast Asia or the Pacific, that China is here. US administrations may come and go and there will be uncertainty in whether or not the policies are consistent over those periods of each presidency. But China is a consistent unchanging force in the region.

Chris Buckley

or possibly changing in some ways too, Susan. And by that, mean, this is kind of a more speculative impression that I have. know, even in the wake of the Trump tariffs and all of the changes of a second Trump term, where there are opportunities for China to present itself in a more benign way to other countries in the region, we have seen that China has repeatedly asserted in different ways, its territorial claims across the region, and also its expanding   military ambitions or presence as well. So we've seen that with friction over disputed islands with Japan. We've seen it   with Taiwan as well. We've seen it just in the recent days with the Philippines as well with China reclaiming some tiny patch of sand near the Philippines as well.

And by that I mean, I think the Chinese leadership, whether intentionally or not, seems to be sending a signal that yes, we are going to be a presence in your region and a steady presence, but a presence that even as we're offering some measure of economic cooperation and opportunity, we're not going to resile from our territorial claims or our ambitions as a regional power either. I think implicitly that was a message that was sent by these warships that travelled recently between Australia and New Zealand as well. Like a leadership in Beijing that was attentive only to sending out good vibes before the Australian election may have chosen not to do that. I think whether consciously or not, they have made the decision to send a signal to Australia and other countries that look, we're going to be here as an economic but also as a military presence, whether you like it or not.

Susan Dietz

And that comes back to one of my earlier comments or questions to you about what China sees as the opportunity for itself here in the region in what seems to them to be a vacuum in terms of US's clear articulation of what it wants in the region. Which takes me to my next question, which is about Australia and how you think about where Australia should be positioning itself now that we have this changing geopolitical dynamic in the region.

Chris Buckley

Goodness, I'm a journalist, I'm almost immune.

Susan Dietz

Feel free to say what you please.

Chris Buckley

I'm almost immune to giving advice about what government should do. So I I will, I will plead the fifth on this one. But what I would say is like, um, I was in China for over two decades as a journalist and then, uh, late 2022 moved to Taiwan. Uh, and I've been reporting there, uh, since then only very rarely visiting Australia. So not really following the domestic conversation here so much, but one of the very instructive things I've found from being in Taiwan for a couple of years now is although it's a very different place, although it's so much closer to China, we see similar tensions and debates unfolding there as we see in Australia, like similar fundamental questions about that relationship with China and how Taiwan or Australia as a democracy should respond to that.

And by that, mean, for example, both economies in different ways, both have a great deal of economic interconnection with China and dependence in some sectors as well. At the same time, of course, in different ways, but we also see that both Taiwan and Australia have had an increasingly tense   relationship with Taiwan when it comes to the military threat from China in particular. And so I see know, both societies are sort of juggling with similar debates and I'm sometimes struck by the echoes I see with how those debates unfold in Taiwan and how they unfold in Australia as different as the two societies are. And so I think there's sort of issues that are probably echoed in other Asian countries as well. I imagine Japan, South Korea and so on. How do you strike the right balance between that economic relationship and the benefits it brings to society?

And the imperatives for security as well. you know, certainly having spent some time in Taiwan now, I just think that is extremely complicated decisions for any government to make, certainly Taiwan's.   so I'm, I'm sort of reluctant to give easy,   or, or potted answers about what Australia or Taiwan should be doing. It's a very tough world that we're going to be facing, not just for the next three or four years, but for decades to come.  

Susan Dietz

Well, my last question to you is coming back to China and its domestic environment and you spent many decades there and you've  studied elements of Chinese politics   formally here at the ANU, if I'm not wrong. And I just wonder from your perspective and the context is this current changing dynamic that is that is playing out with US-China relations and China's own ambitions as it becomes a force to contend with externally. But all politics is domestic and China's always looking to domestic priorities when it articulates its economic and strategic ambitions. So my question for you is, looking at the domestic environment in China, where do you see the greatest risks that would thwart China's ambitions externally?

Chris Buckley

I'd preface my answer to that Susan, with just one comment or impression I've had even in just the past couple of days, visiting Canberra and the ANU. I was lucky enough to be part of a generation that grew up with growing awareness of Australia's connections with Asia and China and had the opportunity to study in China and learn Chinese and spend years there studying and then working. And the fact is it's become more difficult for people to find opportunities to study or work in China these days. I think students have become less interested in studying China and Chinese, partly because of the job outlook for them. understand that, but partly because of the poor impressions they can get of China. And I think that's a great danger if we lose that literacy that we've developed around Asia and China. And so I think it's...

No, I just did want to preface my thoughts about that by saying just how important it is for people to keep studying these things and developing an enthusiasm as I did for learning about Chinese history and politics. And I think out of that, you do develop an appreciation of   how many Chinese people and certainly Chinese leaders have a sense of a special historical status for their country. And that doesn't mean that they necessarily see themselves as unique or superior to every country in the world. But a certain sense that coming from a country that claimed a civilization that goes back thousands of years, creates a certain sense of identity that Australians don't necessarily understand immediately.

So that's a preface to saying that I think it's important to keep studying these issues and looking, you know, now turning to your question about the future and like what could stand in the way, I think is a way of putting it of China's ambitions in the region and domestically as well. There's any number of issues that China has to deal with. The economy is one of them.

For all of China's export growth, there are domestic economic problems that I don't need to explain to you. But I think the other big issue coming up for China is going to be the   question of political succession. Xi Jinping has been in power since 2012. He's established himself as a remarkably powerful leader. And I think a leader who does see himself as having a historical mission for his country, one who sees himself as carrying China into a new era as a great power and one who sees himself as driven by that ambition for himself and his country. And in order to achieve that ambition, he has set aside the usual rules of political succession that began to form in previous decades. He swept those aside and there's no clear successor for Xi Jinping even as he enters his seventies now.

And the next party Congress is going to be in 2027, I believe. But even now there's no clear   sign that there will be a successor anointed to that Congress. And that means we could be another good decade or even longer before we have a clear idea about who may take over from Xi Jinping or when he may retire. So that's, that's an awful lot of ambition and an awful lot of problems on one man's shoulders.

And that means that when the issue of succession comes up, the potential for crisis is there. And that crisis could carry itself through the entire Chinese system simply because it's become so centralized under Xi Jinping and so much weighs on who controls power in the center in Beijing. So there's any other issues that could stand in the way of China.   China's continued advancement as a great power, but I think that issue of succession is one of them.

And then there's a whole bunch of social issues that have to be dealt with in coming decades as well.

Susan Dietz

guess we could have a conversation about   those sorts of domestic pressures, whether it's the aging demographic, whether it's the environment, which is still an issue despite China's quite ambitious targets on that front.

But I'd have to agree with you that lack of clarity on how long she is going to be in power and who he's putting, who he's preparing, if he's preparing anyone to succeed him. I think that increases the uncertainty of the political environment there.

Chris Buckley

And that last point you made about an aging population, environmental pressures, climate change, all of that is going to reshape Chinese power, perhaps constrain it as well. But I think my view is that even a China that is growing much more slowly, whose population is aging much faster than it is now, it's still going to be the world's second biggest economy. And important sectors and important regions of China are very likely to keep growing robustly as well. even as Chinese power may decline or flatten out in some areas, I think we can see that other dimensions of Chinese power are going to remain very important for the world. I wouldn't write any obituaries about China's rise just yet.

Susan Dietz

So thank you, Chris. That was quite a wide ranging set of topics that we discussed here. And perhaps those last points you made might work as a theme for another podcast when we have you next in town.

Chris Buckley

Will be a pleasure to be back, Susan. Good to see you again. Thank you.

Susan Dietz

Thank you very much.

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