[Sometimes, life’s realities intrude upon life’s avocations, and such has been the case for us in recent weeks; what follows is the majority of a hypothetical memo that I had intended to finish before U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met this week. (I wrote both leaders an email asking that they postpone their summit so I could finish this post, but they each declined. 😉) I will post the remainder at some point in the future, but you’ll undoubtedly get the gist – and, will, like Mr. Xi, no matter what you think of the substance, also be grateful for the break. 😊]
Memo to: Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC”)
From: Really Low Section Level Civil Servant Zhāng Sān (Chinese equivalent of “John Doe”)
Great One, if this memo has reached you, it means that it has passed through many hands, from my Section Leader up through his Area Leader, and ultimately to a Politburo member who arranged for it to reach your enlightened gaze. If my name is still on it, it means that all of these highly-esteemed Comrades find merit in what I offer, but want to be sure that I am the one who is shot if you are offended by my suggestions. (In deciding my fate, hopefully your most Merciful and Understanding Benevolence will take into account my youthful exuberance and that I sleep with my copy of Xi Jinping Thought under my pillow every night.)
This week, you will be participating in a Summit Meeting with Donald Trump, the President of the United States. It takes no acuity to observe that America is currently exhausted, in chaos, riven by acrimony. Hon. Trump has become increasingly unpopular over his first year and a half in office – somewhat surprisingly, not because of his moral turpitude, his obvious self-aggrandizement in a country that claims to eschew royalty, or his 2021 assault on the American democracy — but because of his mishandling of the American economy and his more recent grossly misguided foray against our ally, Iran. Even so, inexplicably, approximately a third of Americans still support him. It can be predicted that the toxically polarizing divisions now existing in the American electorate will not recede when he departs, because free speech has allowed partisan broadcasters espousing views from both sides of the American political spectrum, motivated by profit, to continue to stir animosity and discord. America is facing the pressures of an aging population while inexplicably forfeiting its appeal to immigrants – a geopolitical advantage we wish we had. America is deeply in debt, propped up by American, China and other international U.S. bond holders because America has been perceived as the safest place to invest. This will change. We can help it change.
I would pose that Hon. Trump’s undeniably erratic behavior has presented the PRC with an unprecedented opportunity to set a new world order over the remaining two and a half years of the Hon. Trump’s term. I set forth here what I see, from my very lowly position, may be the avenues for spreading the China Dream throughout the regions of the world. The regions are listed in terms of immediacy.
The Middle East. It is clear, given Hon. Trump’s mental degradation, brief attention span and the unpopularity of his Iran incursion, that he is looking for a way to extricate America from the quagmire he has created. Hon. Trump has created a mess. He appears to be a puppet of the Israelis, and gives every indication that he will walk away from the conflict with the region must more unstable than it was before he launched is war. If he does so, we have two advantages: the Iranians will listen to us – and no other nation — if we wish them to tamp down hostilities; and America’s heretofore allies in the region will be irate at the manner in which Hon. Trump has abandoned them to greater Iranian terrorism and economic risk than they faced before the war. Credible reporting indicates that Hon. Trump’s apparent half-heartedness in pursing his initiative has already significantly impaired America’s relationships with its allies in the region. America and Hon. Trump have lost face in the region because the Iranian regime has withstood America’s assertion of its military power and as a consequence of Hon. Trump’s inconsistent messages and unfulfilled threats. Hon. Trump’s obvious unwillingness to deploy ground troops – presumably because the inevitable resulting American casualties in an unpopular war will decimate whatever political support he still has – has shown him to be a paper tiger. China, because of its influence with Iran, can replace America as the arbiter of stability in the Middle East. In the meantime, China should continue whatever covert assistance to Iran it is now providing to enable Iran to continue its struggle. During the upcoming summit, Your Uniqueness might consider demanding that America immediately begin to let oil tankers bound for China proceed through the Strait of Hormuz, and, if insufficient American concessions are not forthcoming, threaten to embargo American produce (disproportionately adversely affecting Trump supporters) and its access to our rare earth minerals. (Hon. Trump’s predictable response will be to threaten to increase tariffs on Chinese goods. If he does so, such measures will hurt China temporarily, but will undoubtedly impair America’s ability to maintain its defensive capabilities, alarm global financial markets, and increase America’s inflation rate; Hon. Trump currently can’t politically afford these outcomes.)
Europe, Russia, and Ukraine. Here again, Hon. Trump’s inexplicable disregard for America’s traditional strategic allies has provided us with an unexpected opportunity to expand our global influence. The American president’s trade wars with the European Union, his boorish and imperialistic behavior – his threat to annex Greenland by force will never be forgotten by the other NATO nations — and his willingness to essentially abandon the other NATO nations as they face what they consider a real Russian threat to their own security has created a rift, a distrust between the European nations and America, that many experts have opined will never be entirely repaired. America’s unwarranted Iranian incursion has exacerbated this ill will among Europeans by driving up their energy costs with the likelihood that an extended conflict will materially and significantly damage their economies. Our approach needs to be subtle. I will humbly suggest that despite our intent to maintain solidarity with Russia, with whom you have indicated that we have an unbreakable bond, expansion of Russian political control into western Europe is not in China’s interest. While true democracies provide an image of political freedom which the PRC must effectively counteract in messaging to our people, China needs an economically strong Europe to buy our goods. Without wishing to offend Your Uniqueness with being too candid, Comrade Putin, with whom I am sure you have the warmest relationship, leads the hollow shell of a once-proud nation; besides nuclear weapons — which you have seemingly made it clear to the Comrade that he cannot employ in his struggle against Ukraine – and admittedly sophisticated intelligence capabilities, Russia has limited geopolitical assets and few prospects of generating them. Its army has been embarrassingly exposed by the Ukrainians. While China would of course outwardly applaud a Russian conquest of Ukraine, and China clearly has an interest in covertly assisting Russia because our own prestige will be degraded if Russia is perceived to have been defeated by Ukraine, our interests are arguably best served if the struggle continues in its current status – depleting both Russian and European assets – which will make the former more dependent upon us for military assistance, and the latter more amenable to any trade proposals we will wish to make in the future. We should surreptitiously provide Russia the aid it needs to keep it going, but not enough to enable it to overpower the Ukrainians. In retrospect, Comrade Putin’s Ukraine invasion might be interpreted not only as an effort to reestablish the USSR but also as an attempt to achieve a greater level of parity with China among those nations choosing to be led by enlightened leaders rather than by their people; if so, its abysmal strategic failure has reduced Russia to a position of China’s favored supplicant. If necessary, we should make it absolutely clear to Comrade Putin – similar to the manner in which America asserted its precedence among western democracies by instructing Great Britain and France to cease and desist in their Middle East invasion during the 1956 Suez Crisis — that China does not consider it in China’s interest for Russia to attempt any further reestablishment of the USSR, and that any Russian expansionist designs will HALT at the current NATO border. One may suggest that over the coming decade Europeans will become increasingly desirous of dealing with us economically because they’ll be seeking a counterweight to America – as long as they see China as a check on Russian expansion, and China’s actions do not cause European leaders to view China as a national security threat.
South America and Africa. These continents are obviously somewhat less important geopolitically and each includes too many countries to enable each to be dealt with specifically in this memorandum, but again, Hon. Trump’s obviously racist and one-sided mercenary instincts provide us with opportunities. Hon. Trump’s attempt to maintain a sphere of influence over South America to the exclusion of China – his so called, “Donroe Doctrine” – is a joke. In Brazil, his feud with its leftist leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his willingness to interfere in Brazilian domestic affairs and legal and democratic processes in support of “the Trump of South America,” Brazil’s former rightest president, Juan Bolsanaro, has alienated South America’s largest and most powerful country. I will also suggest that even America’s recent deposition of Venezuela’s leftist president, Nicolás Maduro, will backfire on the Americans. While America’s capture of Sr. Maduro was originally viewed by ordinary Venezuelans as an act of liberation, by Hon. Trump leaving the entire Maduro regime in place – deferring popular elections, turning his back on and thus insulting the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, after she agreed to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Hon. Trump — in return for Sr. Maduro’s minions’ willingness to provide America access to Venezuelan oil (which Hon. Trump somehow, inexplicably, considers “American oil”) will ultimately turn Venezuelan public opinion against America, making it a fertile ground for us. Likewise, one of the first initiatives of Hon. Trump’s Administration – “DOGE” — cut out aid programs to Africa considered vital to protect Africans’ health, and Hon. Trump’s well-publicized racist reference to African countries as “Shithole Countries” has undoubtedly created sufficient disfavor among African nations that China, through deft diplomacy and economic aid, can establish primacy on the African continent as well.
North America. Since the continent is America’s direct sphere of influence, and the economies of Canada and Mexico rely heavily upon trade with America, there is only so much that can be done within this region, but even here, there are opportunities. Hon. Trump’s imperious approach to Mexico – recall his highly offensive attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the “Gulf of America,” and that not long ago America was accused by the Mexican government of conducting operations against Mexican cartels without the Mexican government’s knowledge – taken together with his offensive trade policies and his disparaging and obviously racist attitudes and references to Latin peoples have alienated Mexico sufficiently that I would suggest that deft Chinese diplomacy may enable us to establish greater economic ties with Mexico, which will be eager to have some counterweight against America. Canada, of course, will be the most difficult. Although Canadian Prime Minister Carney clearly has no use for Hon. Trump, and is seeking to link Canada more closely to the EU and establish even deeper ties for Canada within NATO, the Canadians’ geographic, ethnic, and cultural proximity to America enable Canadians, more than any other people, to conceptually separate Hon. Trump and his administration from “America” and the American people. Even so, Hon. Trump’s offensive calls to make Canada America’s “51st state” and one-sided trade policies have undoubtedly increased anti-American sentiment among some Canadians, and Canadians have now undoubtedly recognized that a large share of the American electorate is gullible, easily persuaded by demagogues. Their government may well embrace deeper exchanges of commodities with China as a counterweight to future American instability and unreliability. We should encourage these sentiments by granting as favorable a trade status to Canadian products and produce as our own domestic circumstances can afford.
Your Uniqueness, if you have found any merit in what I have placed before you, I will beg your sufferance for my delay in providing you with my additional very low and obviously very uninformed and unworthy views supplementing those I have had the temerity to place before you; if you haven’t, I am confident that I will have no need to further ponder how China might manage the nations with which we share our own immediate sphere of the world, and our runaway province Taiwan. Just keep in mind: You are a Manchester City fan. Amazingly, so am I! Go City!
McCoy's Noise 