Hong Kong: As newly installed President Donald Trump pursues his personal agenda in the White House, Chairman Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elites must be rubbing their hands with glee. Trump and his senior officials are alarming or snubbing one country after another, thus providing China multiple opportunities to advance its own authoritarian cause.
With regularity, the almost buffoonish actions of Trump are lowering respect for the USA around the world. Whether it is threats to seize control of the Panama Canal or Greenland, Trump is making a mockery of the rule of law. In language reminiscent of China's leaders, the American second-term president has not ruled out the use of force to "retake" the Panama Canal.
Yet that is exactly what tsarist Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine, and what Xi is threatening to do to Taiwan. Both claim foreign territory as their own, and they deem conquest necessary to secure their national security interests. If it is okay for Trump to talk like this, then how can the world criticize Putin and Xi for similar ambitions? This is the quandary that Trump is creating for himself.
One of Trump's first tasks was to suspend US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for 90 days, as he moves it under the Department of State and shrinks its workforce. The USA funds 40 per cent of global foreign aid, so curbing its finances will badly disrupt humanitarian aid worldwide. Although couched in the language of saving money and demanding accountability, the USA is proving an unreliable partner and is giving China a golden opportunity to step up and expand its influence.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting director of USAID, said, "These are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest."
Whilst that may be true, knee-jerk and short-term actions may boomerang back against American national interests in ways still unforeseen.
Rubio added, "This [is] not about ending foreign aid. It's about structuring it in a way that furthers the national interest of the United States." However, others in Trump's administration have exhibited a wholly different sentiment. Elon Musk, the billionaire head of the Department of Government Efficiency, described USAID as "a criminal organization" and decreed it was time "for it to die".
Even though China's economy is struggling, Trump is handing China global influence on a silver platter. As the USA withdraws, China can renew or rethink its soft-power efforts and market itself as a responsible global power. This is already happening.
When mine-clearing operations in Cambodia were suspended after Trump pulled the plug on USAID, China stepped in with offers of assistance. Interestingly, USAID was established by President John F Kennedy in 1961, its primary aim being to counter Soviet influence in vulnerable areas of the world. In 2023, USAID gave assistance worth USD 64 billion.
Michael Schiffer, a former USAID official under the Joe Biden administration, told Associated Press: "We'll be sitting on the sidelines, and then in a couple of years we'll have a conversation about how we're shocked that the PRC has positioned itself as the partner of choice in Latin America, Africa and Asia."
China's equivalent of USAID is the China International Development Cooperation Agency (China Aid). It is nowhere as large as USAID, as China's model focuses on giving loans and developing infrastructure under Xi's much-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, as finances have tightened since the COVID-19 pandemic, the BRI has been whittled back.
It is difficult to quantify Chinese aid, but William & Mary's Global Research Institute estimated that, from 2000-21, China provided USD 1.34 trillion in loans to developing nations, mainly through the BRI. To give an illustration of the different Chinese and American approaches, the USA might train doctors whereas China would prefer to build a hospital. China's approach is much more transactional rather than humanitarian, for Beijing seeks to reap a financial gain from its foreign assistance.
Nor is China interested in improving local governance in trouble spots around the world, something that USAID prioritizes in war-torn or insurgency-plagued areas.
Beijing is naturally not keen to advance democracy, but it would rather promote its own authoritarian style of government.
USAID even had a Countering Chinese Influence Fund, whose purpose was to "advance national security goals" and "build more resilient partners that are able to withstand pressure from the CCP and other malign actors". USAID must have been doing something well, for it has been heavily criticized by China. Last year, China's Foreign Ministry issued a report accusing USAID programs of prioritizing the advancement of US interests and of corruption. (ANI)
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