Princeton’s Rory Truex unwraps Trump’s gifts to China, from tariffs to tech wars

One of the United States’ most respected experts on modern China, Rory Truex is an associate professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, researching Chinese politics and authoritarian systems.

As one of the first to identify a growing pressure in Washington for policy specialists to adopt an anti-China hawkishness, Truex is well-placed to assess the hostility coming from the White House, where he says it really is “all about Donald Trump”.

This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.

In US President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office, you suggested his administration had been “relatively easy” on China. Things have changed dramatically, with the launch of a tariff war on Beijing. How would you describe Trump’s China policy now?

Initially, there was a question about whether there would be a broader authoritarian realignment, where Trump cosies up to both [Russian leader] Vladimir Putin and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, and potentially other authoritarian leaders.

And I say that because I view Trump as a proto autocrat, in the sense that I think he is someone who does not respect the institutions of democracy and therefore has an affinity with these types of leaders elsewhere in the world.

At this point, I wouldn’t say Trump has been “relatively easy” on China, as things have escalated quite dramatically. The aggressive rhetoric and new tariffs might just be one of his bargaining tactics, but it does not appear that he is interested in resetting the relationship with China more broadly.

South China Morning Post