“This competition is going to be there for the long term. Yet we need to find ways in which this competition can be managed, where we can manage escalation and try and understand to a certain degree, each other’s red lines.”
“I think that was the objective,” said Manoj Kewalramani, head of geo-strategy at the Takshashila Institution, in a conversation on Trump’s recently concluded China summit, on The Gist. But he was doubtful how much was actually achieved.
Trump seemed to have his eyes elsewhere, on China buying US agricultural products, on support for the war on Iran, on fentanyl and so on.
Brig Anil Raman (Retd) the other guest also from the Takshashila Institution where he researches and writes on the US, believes that Trump entered the summit with a weak hand. His approval ratings ranged from 34 to 40%, he’s scoring 27% on economic issues and the war against Iran is not going well.
“I think as far as he’s concerned, he’s got the optics of having gone and met and to sort of stabilised the competition between the US and China,” he argued, “I don’t think it’s going to translate into concrete effects but at least there’s been talking, discussion on that.”
Kewalramani believes that “the most important thing that Trump got was a private tour of the Zhongnanhai, which as Xi told him, is extremely rare.”
The US wants China (and the world) to get hooked onto its digital stacks and chips but the Chinese were not terribly interested, at least the government wasn’t even if Chinese industry was.
From an Indian point of view, the summit has produced a runaway where strategic competition will play out. This is good for India since it is neither a split between the two sides nor a Cold War. Rather it is managed competition and if the US and China can agree so some rules for the road, it could create predictability for Indian business.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Manoj Kewalramani and Brig Anil Raman (Retd), both of the Takshashila Institution.
