China’s qualms with long Trumpism

Beijing may believe that Donald Trump’s 2016 election and his return to office eight years later are not accidents but part of a deeper American current. Beyond Trump himself, the America that has emerged since 2016 increasingly seems unwilling to worry about the world.

For a century, beginning with America’s intervention in the First World War in 1917, the United States concerned itself with the global order through three great conflicts: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Trump’s 2016 election, however, gave voice to an America tired of international affairs, once again “selfish” and feeling cheated by the world for its generosity. This America is undermining the very international institutions it created, including the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

China has never truly felt that these institutions fully represented it, its values, or its way of thinking. The American world order does not belong to China. If America wants to destroy that order, why should China support it?

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