On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump touched down in Beijing for a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The meeting’s stakes are enormous, unfolding against the backdrop of what historian and Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson has long described as “Cold War II”: the intensifying geopolitical, economic, and technological rivalry between the United States and China. In today’s Big Read, Niall breaks down what to expect from the summit—and why, over the next two days, everything will revolve around the defining geopolitical flash point of the 21st century: Taiwan. —The Editors
The Oxford English Dictionary defines détente as “the easing of strained relations, esp. in a political situation.” But in the late 1970s it became something of a dirty word in conservative circles when it was the strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that were being eased. “Détente?” Ronald Reagan famously asked. “Isn’t that what a farmer has with his turkey—until Thanksgiving?”
“So far,” Reagan said, in his first press conference as president in January 1981, “detente’s been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims. . . . the promotion of world revolution and a one-world socialist or Communist state.”
He added, for good measure, that the Soviets had “openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that.”
It is often forgotten how far Reagan based his ascent from the governorship of California to the presidency on trashing the policy of détente between the United States and the Soviet Union—to the point that by the time of the 1980 election it had become almost synonymous with appeasement. How odd, you might say, that détente should make a comeback under, of all people, Donald J. Trump.
There is little doubt that Trump wants his summit in Beijing, which begins on Thursday, to be a success. “I am very much looking forward to my trip to China,” he truthed (if that’s a word) on Monday, “an amazing Country, with a Leader, President Xi [Jinping], respected by all. Great things will happen for both Countries!” He used similar language back in February after the two leaders had spoken by phone. “The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one,” Trump gushed, “and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way. I believe that there will be many positive results achieved over the next three years of my Presidency having to do with President Xi, and the People’s Republic of China!”
