Forget about waiting out the Donald Trump era for a more cordial US president, former top American diplomat warns China

Beijing has misjudged politics’ impact on China policy in the US, says Daniel Russel, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs

Superpowers’ rivalry has made it difficult for moderate voices in both countries to be heard, he says

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Daniel Russel, the former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, says Chinese officials could “outsmart themselves” trying to calculate how the 2020 US presidential election could benefit China. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 2:00pm, 9 Jul 2019Updated: 4:51am, 10 Jul 2019

A former top US diplomat warned China on Monday not to believe it can wait out the Trump administration to get a better trade deal from a friendlier US president, saying Beijing has misjudged the importance of politics in China policymaking in the United States government.

“I don’t think the Chinese government has any better record of understanding US politics, particularly US politics in the Trump era, than the Trump administration has in understanding Chinese politics,” said Daniel Russel, the former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

“The misfires over the US-China trade talks is evidence of that,” Russel said in an interview on the sidelines of an international relations forum in Beijing, referring to recent breakdowns in trade negotiations.

In May, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told the South China Morning Post that China should give up any hope it could wait out the Donald Trump years for a less antagonistic administration.

Bannon predicted that the US relationship with China would be a central issue in the 2020 presidential election and that the next president – whoever won – would get tough on Beijing.