Politico | The 10 names that matter on China policy
Trump’s skepticism of Asia was a key part of his campaign’s identity. These 10 people are dealing with the reality.
This story is being published by the South China Morning Post as part of a content partnership with POLITICO. It was reported by Derek Robertson and originally appeared on politico.com on June 11, 2018.
“As close as lips and teeth,” goes the Chinese proverb traditionally cited to describe the nation’s relationship with North Korea. This week President Donald Trump heads to Singapore to negotiate with Kim Jong Un over North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear arms program, in what may be the most consequential deal of his life. Chinese President Xi Jinping will be watching these negotiations closely, wary of any concessions on North Korea’s part that could lead to greater U.S. influence on a continent over which his party grows increasingly dominant each year. It was surely no coincidence that Kim arrived in Singapore on a Chinese jet.
When the Chinese National People’s Congress moved to remove term limits for Xi in early March, Claremont McKenna’s Minxin Pei described his government as “not your garden-variety dictatorship, but a successor to a totalitarian regime.” The reign of the Communist Party of China, now inseparable from the Chinese state itself, stretches back nearly seven decades; the scope of its domestic rule and its global power would seem to require the judicious evaluation of a team of U.S. experts who themselves span generations. President Donald Trump has advocated for a different approach. “Why are you doing state dinners for them?” he asked rhetorically at a 2015 campaign stop. “They’re ripping us left and right. Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table.”
As Trump sits down at the table with Kim this week, China-watchers (and the Chinese themselves) will be paying close attention to what the results signal regarding the nation’s relationship with the United States. The 10 people on this list are those with either the knowledge and perspective to improve our understanding of this crucial relationship or the proximity to the levers of power to shape it. Trump’s stream of brash proclamations about China have posed a mighty challenge for those tasked with retrofitting them to reality—and the next seven decades may depend on how well they fare. In no particular order:
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Michael Pillsbury