Top 4 China Priorities for a New Administration

特朗普

1. Reach out to President Lai of Taiwan to baseline the changing relationship. There is a slow sea change happening between Washington and Taipei. With more coordination and arms sales than at any time since the abrogation of the mutual defense treaty in 1979, both sides need to keep clear channels of consistent communication open.

POTUS’ margin of error against the PRC is at its thinnest on the Taiwan issue, so the US can’t afford much daylight between Trump and Lai in messaging. At the same time, before the Trump administration decides its corporate approach to Taiwan, it would help to actually discuss some of these issues with President Lai. If Trump expects Taiwan to spend more on defense, then this should be known directly and early on in the relationship.

2. Pick a grand strategic approach to PRC. Trump and Vance will have to sort out who will be their respective National Security Advisors (NSAs) and then fill out the nat sec staff. People are policy, and the people in the Trump camp have different views and preferences on foreign affairs, China being no exception. 

The two major Republican approaches, as outlined in our previous article, are containment and a minimal deterrent sometimes called deterrence by denial. The differences are significant, but to paint a quick picture: containment is a more resource-intensive strategy of getting the US unified on a whole-of-nation footing to counter the PRC long term by denying Chinese expansion. 

The minimal deterrent approach is less resource-intensive and focuses on having just enough military resources to deny Beijing’s military aims in the first island chain, forcing the PRC to back off from Taiwan. Elbridge Colby has been one of the lead proponents of this view, and is currently making a full court press on X in a bid to position himself into the incoming administration.

There is wisdom in both approaches, but choices must be made. Of course, Trump can pick a different strategy, or no strategy at all. Other approaches could be equally valid (accommodation, restraint, competition, a novel approach), but Trump has not signaled anything in that direction. In fact, he has illustrated that he understands the current American approach of strategic ambiguity quite well in his public interviews (time 06:01).

Trump could also make no choices on strategy in order to retain maximum executive flexibility. If this is done, POTUS should centralize decision making and reduce the amount of personnel and “experts” assigned to the China problem set until a more formalized approach is selected. This would give POTUS maximum maneuver space. VPOTUS would also need to be tightly involved if this were the case, since Trump will not run in 2028.

3. Decide what communication with the CCP looks like. Day-to-day nation-to-nation communication must be predicated on mutual standards and understanding of what the communication is for. This is not currently the case between Zhongnanhai and the White House. The Chinese continue to play games with basic communications in the belief that this will accrue advantages to the Chinese side.

As Jake Rinaldi’s excellent study of PRC crisis communication methods shows, the leaders in Beijing do not think about crisis communication in the same way as their American counterparts. 

In fact, there are Chinese strategic thinkers who believe a crisis is more likely with robust crisis communication capabilities because the ability to communicate may make Washington more likely to escalate if American decision makers feel they have more tools to de-escalate.

This is an interesting view, but likely has more to do with the PRC’s poor ability to communicate internally and externally rapidly in crisis than it does in any inherent crisis instability generated by the existence of crisis communication capabilities.

The Trump administration should seek to decisively end this quirky Chinese theory early on. The solution is to increase the costs on Beijing for poor communication until an acceptable solution is established. If Beijing refuses to pick up the phone, Trump should have a series of pre-rehearsed options to escalate quickly in areas sensitive to Beijing. It is easy enough for Washington to have a public meeting with Taiwan about a PRC issue if the CCP refuses to discuss the topic. Wash and repeat until Xi reliably picks up the phone.

At a minimum, communication with the CCP must totally leapfrog PRC billets. Individuals working for Beijing in PRC state posts generally lack the appropriate authority to discuss issues with senior US elected and appointed officials.

4. Decide what the military component of coercion looks like and communicate this to the DoD. It doesn’t matter if Trump wants to intervene in a war over Taiwan or not. Does he want the capability to do so successfully (which is a different question)? Having the capability to do so and credibly communicating that to Beijing would likely coerce the PRC into not invading Taiwan in the first place.

This method of coercing Beijing over the Taiwan question has worked many times in the past. If the Trump administration wants to avoid new wars and maintain American coercive power, then these capabilities require funding either by DoD budget increases or reprioritization which defunds other DoD/government activities. 

If the DoD is not to have the capabilities to make this coercive approach credible, then what is the strategy and funding? Administration communication to the Pentagon and the services must be crystal clear, so that the DoD can begin organizing efficiently around a shared vision and prioritized list of objectives.