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Letters | The US urged China to be a responsible global stakeholder. It must follow its own advice
- Under Donald Trump, the US has repeatedly undermined international institutions and failed to build a coalition with market democracies to check authoritarianism in China
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Former US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick once challenged China to become “a responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Given how US policies are now formulated, Zoellick’s comments seem incredibly ironic.
Under President Donald Trump, the United States has steadily shunned multilateral cooperation, and been brashly abrasive with world organisations and countries alike. Instead of stemming its own systemic institutional rot, the US has retreated into nationalistic antagonism.
Zoellick said that responsible stakeholders work to sustain the international system. Trump, however, has disavowed this with his illogical, confrontational, transactional approaches to issues and repeatedly undermined the international institutions that allow nations to cooperate.
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Amid a pandemic, Trump attacked the World Health Organisation and withdrew US funding, endeavouring to deflect attention from his failures. More interested in badmouthing China than in being “a responsible stakeholder”, he squandered opportunities to promote cooperation within the G20, G7 and the United Nations Security Council.
Trump’s onslaught on the World Trade Organisation handed the US freedom to retaliate against trading partners for alleged unfair trading practices, instead of routing claims through the WTO for impartial judgment.
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WTO nominee vows to bring US and China to negotiating table
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Trump repudiated the Paris climate agreement and rolled back environmental regulations. China, though still a major polluter, is pioneering clean energy technology.
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