The Sino-US Relationship Essay Example

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States was a controversial president over the past decades. His administrations were attracted the international focus frequently, especially policy on Sino-US relations. In the following essay, the three major perspectives regarding the effect of the Sino-US relationship during the Trump administration including changes of attitude, extending the US power to restrict the rise of China, and his economic protectionism will be illustrated with the justification of examples.

Primarily, the first administrations affect the Sino-US relationship were transform the US attitude towards China. It is considered that the United States considered China as a partner with the purpose of against the USSR in the cold war era. After the dissolved of the Soviet Union, it is noted that the United States continues to consider China as a partner, helping China to fit into the international society. For instance, allowed China to participate in different International Organisations including World Trade Organisation, the United Nations, and so on. Albeit there is a variety of cooperation between the United States and China. For example, the C2 concepts raised by China during the APEC conference in 2009 were accepted and agreed upon by the United States. However, after the Trump administration, it can be clearly illustrated that the attitudes toward China have transformed into a competitor from a partner. Mendis & Wang (2017) mentioned that the Trump administration is mainly transforming the attitude of the United States national policy on handling the relationship with China. Trump administration treated China from a companion into a competitor is because of the massive development and transformation in China have happened after the Xi administration. For example, Huawei has become the leader in the 5G development. COMAC invented the first commercial jet ARJ21 successfully. Meanwhile, the second new commercial jet C919, combating with Boeing B737 families and the Airbus A320 series, also finished its test flight successfully. These technological inventions were considered threats to American national safety and the interest of American enterprises including Boeing (Stone, 2021). Therefore, the Trump administration transformed its attitudes toward competitors and the act was leading to the fall of the Sino-US relationship and the action against China remained during the Biden administration.

Despite the transformation of the United States considered China from a companion to a competitor. Moreover, another significant administration affecting Sino-US relations would be Donald Trump wants to achieve a rebalance policy in Asia regarding restricting the expansion of China. Since Donald Trump participated in the presidential election in 2015, he described his administration will “Making America Greater Again”. It is suggested that Donald Trump performed a new strategy on foreign affairs to achieve his election commitment. However, the new strategy could not maintain a friendly relationship with China and caused the closest Asia companions including South Korea and Japan anxious (Sutter,2018). The Trump administration performed a variety of policies to avoid China's expansion. For example, Donald Trump signed to have a new law regulating new language courses from Confucius Institutes in all universities in the USA. Moreover, Donald Trump also replanning the military in the Indo-Pacific Ocean to restrict the Chinese Navy's power expansion. These new strategies illustrated the purpose of Donald Trump's administration would like to block all opportunities for China to expand to the international stage. Because of Donald Trump mentioned that China under the Xi administration was performing an ‘all-of-nation long-term strategy” involving military modernization, influence operations, espionage, and predatory economic policy. These actions may undermine the interest of the United States (Sutter,2018). In consequence, the Trump administration would like to ban the opportunity to the expansion of China as a protection to the international society.

Furthermore, the third major administration affecting Sino-US relations would be the protection of the economy for its internal development and performing against China policy weakens the relationship of the Sino-US relations. According to Carr (2021), it is noted that the internal economic situation in the United States was fallen due to the trade deficit with China and Donald Trump believed that China was the most vital element causing the serious trade deficit in various aspects. First, most of the Chinese products were tax-free for sale in America but at a low and attractive price, weakening the competitiveness of American products. Secondly, the disrespectful atmosphere toward intellectual property was popular in China. For example, in China “Miniso” was the brand criticized for copying UNIQLO and MUJI, while the brand “New Barlun” was copying “New Balance” (Tai, 2018).  As a result, sanctions on Chinese products were performed during the Trump administration affected the relationship on Sino-US relations and the Sino-US trade war begins (Ashbee & Hurst, 2021). For instance, Trump performs sanctions on Chinese Technology enterprises including ZTE, Huawei, and more. The case of Huawei manager Meng Wanzhou and the banned on using Huawei 5G tech were become controversial issues and harming the Sino-US relationship. The trade war caused the relationship between China and US into the worst situation. Albeit China and United States have compromised the trade deal currently. However, the relationship remains the worst as both Trump and Xi have conflicts on other issues including cross-strait, Xinjiang Human rights, and the Hong Kong problem.

In consequence, it can be clearly expressed that the Trump administration has performed an enormous transformation in America. Including three significant factors made by the Trump administration towards China. The Sino-US relationship becomes no longer stable since the transformation by Donald Trump and continues to the current Biden administration, which could be illustrated through the action of the USA concentrated the attitudes on Ukraine-Russia War China China. The route against China is confirmed to sustain until another route transformation is performed by a new leader in both United States and PRC.