14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

DAILY COMMENT

CHINA TRIES TO MAKE SENSE OF DONALD TRUMP

By Jiayang Fan,NOVEMBER12,2016

Donald Trump anchored his Presidential campaign in part on the threat of a Sino-American trade war and a
promise to take U.S. jobs back from the thieving Chinese.

C ommunications between the worlds rising superpower and its existing one
were o to a jolly start when Chinas state media and Donald Trump, the
American President-elect, appeared to contradict each other on whether Chinese
President Xi Jinping had contacted Trump in the days following his historic win.
According to Xinhua News, Chinas state media, Xi sent a congratulatory message
to Trump, who had anchored his campaign in part on the threat of a Sino-American
trade war and a promise to take U.S. jobs back from the thieving Chinese. (Chinese
state television reportedly went further, saying that the two men had spoken on the
phone.) According to the Chinese media, Xi had cordial, conciliatory words for
Americas soon-to-be forty-fifth President, declaring Trump that developing long-
term healthy and stable Sino-U.S. relations is in the fundamental interests of the
peoples of both countries. The message may not have made much of an impression:
On Friday, the President-elect gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, which
reported, Mr. Trump said he had spoken with or heard from most foreign leaders
except Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But the playbook had been irrevocably changed. The Chinese state-run media,
which did not ocially endorse either nominee, begrudgingly favored Hillary
Clinton; despite her perceived pivot to Asia, the Secretary of State seemed,at least,
to represent stability and something akin to the devil they knew. Now the leaders in
Beijing, who have never enjoyed surprises, must contend with a man whose primary
attributes, aside from a propensity for bluster, seem to be belligerence, impulsiveness,
and illiteracy when it comes to foreign policy. Trump, some commentators

suggested, might need a crash courseand fast. Yu Yongding, an economist at the

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 1/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

suggested, might need a crash courseand fast. Yu Yongding, an economist at the

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing, suggested to a Times reporter that
all President Trump might require to correct his delusions was some Economics
101: All the things he said during the election were the talk of an amateurI dont
think he was in earnest, Yu said. After he becomes president, therell be advisers at
his side to explain to him what the exchange rate is, what capital flows are, what
macroeconomic policy is.

Thatcomment, almost touching in its optimism that Trump might possess the will
to graduate from his novice status, reminded me of an episode of The Oce in
which Michael Scott, the zippy fool-in-chief of the Dunder Miin paper company,
attempts to grasp a basic accounting conceptthe surplusupon which an
executive decision must turn. One of Michaels few competent employees, a gay
Mexican-American named Oscar, brings in Excel spreadsheets documenting the
companys earnings in an attempt to explain to his boss that the leftover money
must be spent, or else it will be deducted from next years budget. Michael, however,
is either too slow or too arrogant to understand (his eyes are focussed gleefully on
the lens of the mockumentary camera, of course). Why dont you explain this to me
like I am an eight-year-old, he says. Oscar tries again in simpler vocabulary. A
pause and Michael, with his brows still burrowed, says, Mmm, O.K., why dont you
explain this to me like Im five?

It does not completely beggar belief to think that some version of the exchange
between Michael and Oscar might play out between the pompous property tycoon
and his coterie of advisers in the coming days. If Trump is sensible enough to choose
those with experience in economics and foreign policy, and sustain the focus to heed
their counseland these are serious ifshe might learn that his campaign pledge to
declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in oce would be a grave
misstep, because it is inaccurate and beside the point. While Beijing did suppress the
value of its exchange rate for a decade, it hasnt done so in two years; instead, it has
spent a trillion on keeping the yuan high, not low.

If Trump is truly the dealmaker he makes himself out to be, he should also learn
soon enough that bullying China does not serve long-term U.S. interests. Millions
of the jobs he promised to return to Middle America from China and Japan and
Mexico no longer exist anywhere, because the world is no longer living in 1979,

when the manufacturing sector was in its heyday and most Americans did not need
http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 2/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

when the manufacturing sector was in its heyday and most Americans did not need
a college degree to find employment that would pay enough to sustain what felt like
a middle-class life style. Implementing forty-five-per-cent tari hikes on Chinese
imports will not turn back the clock, either. Poor and middle-class Americans, who
spend a substantial amount of their earnings on imported products, have benefitted
from lower-priced goods made overseas. His proposal would hand his constituents a
price increase.

Theres a great deal to be worried about, and yet one hopes that, as pugnacious and
vindictive as Trump is, he is also proud and thin-skinned, a man intent on
maintaining the veneer of a winner. In the world of The Oce, Michael finally
grasps the urgency of making a decision, and does so in a way that preserves some
semblance of his leadership. But even that fantasy outcome would leave in place the
most troubling aspect of Trumps ideology with regards to East Asia: its insidious
eect on the moral credibility of the United States. At a time when China is
growing increasingly repressive with regard to its citizens and assertive with its
neighbors, Trumps isolationismone of his mantras is Americanism, not
globalism!is a boon to any dictatorial regime set on perpetuating and extending
its control. Human-rights abuses have long been a sore spot between Clinton and
Beijing, but considering Trumps advocacy of torture and his vow to deport eleven
million immigrants, its unlikely that the new President will be tempted to take a
stand. Given his admiration for autocrats like Russias Vladimir Putin, they might
even prove inspirational.

The day after the election, the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party-backed
tabloid, declared, with a touch of schadenfreude, that the U.S. President-elect was
known for being a blowhard and an egomaniac. But if such a person can be
president, there is something wrong with the existing political order. On Chinese
social media, bloggers, some perplexed, others incredulous, wondered why the
United States was going backward. Theres actually a beautiful symmetry here,
one graduate student in Shanghai reflected. Two hundred years ago, China tried to
close itself o with xenophobia, insularity, and an impotent emperor. It was like this
great ostrich who buried its head in the sand . . . and we became so weak that
foreigners took advantage time and again so we had to retreat further and further.
The Oce s Michael Scott wouldnt have spotted the symmetry here, of course, no
matter how much one simplifies the vocabulary.With his gaze firmly axed on the

camera, it would have likely slipped his noticeas easily as the concept of a
http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 3/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

camera, it would have likely slipped his noticeas easily as the concept of a
surplus or the days most important work message.

Jiayang Fan became a sta writer at The New Yorker in 2016.

MORE: CHINA DONALDTRUMP POLITICS ECONOMY XIJINPING

WATCH:DonaldTrumpdeliveredremarksafterhavingwonthe2016Presidentialelection.

About

Cond Nast Digital

Our sites

2016 Cond Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our user agreement (eective 1/2/2016)
and privacy policy (eective 1/2/2016). Your California privacy rights. The material on this site may not be reproduced,
distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Cond Nast.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 4/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 5/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 6/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 7/8
14/11/2016 ChinaTriestoMakeSenseofDonaldTrumpTheNewYorker

http://www.newyorker.com/news/dailycomment/chinatriestomakesenseofdonaldtrump 8/8