Columnists and political scientists outraged because Trump could abandon Taipei to reach an agreement with the Dragon. The alternative is to risk large-scale conflict. It is wiser to negotiate by leveraging your opponent’s weaknesses. And remaining firm on Japan and Korea.
What a scandal: Trump does business, Trump plays along Xi, Trump abandons allies in Asia, Trump leave Europe alone. Everyone takes the stand to explain what Thucydides’ trap, evoked by the Chinese leader, is: if an emerging power threatens to undermine the hegemonic but shaky power, the inevitable outcome is conflict. So what? Which he should do Trumprather than seeking a modus vivendi with the adversary? Wage a holy war on him? Dying for Taipei? He has an idea: “I don’t want someone to declare independence,” he said yesterday, “and for the USA to have to travel 15,000 kilometers to go to war.” If he had reasoned like this with Iran…
Even the right criticizes The Donald: the radical fringes of the Maga world accuse him that appeasement with Beijing would be a betrayal of America first. It’s true: the tycoon promised to resolve the imbalances caused by the Dragon’s irruption into world trade, with their impact on employment and wages in the USA. But under present conditions, can he get more than one deal that allows him and the nation to “do business”? He did his best to complicate his life: the tariffs did not bend China, which would not have missed the Americans’ poor war performance. However, if today the regime relishes the crisis of the “American complex” (La Stampa), it is also because, behind it, there are a couple of decades of sensational strategic blunders by the West. To propitiate the entry of the “tiger” into the WTO, in the name of the unstoppable spread of liberal democracy, it was Bill Clinton. Not at all Trump.
Thucydides’ trap and Trump’s realism
Francis Fukuyama, another protagonist of those years of optimistic intoxication, now a semi-repentant theorist of the “end of History”, in Repubblica insists on the principle: “A Trump“, he says, “it doesn’t matter about supporting democracies in the world.” «In a “deal”», Stefano Stefanini adds in the Turin newspaper, «all the intermediate pawns can then be spent, if the price is right. Also Taiwan. Kiev too.” It’s the vulgar logic of “doing business”, isn’t it?
The real question, in reality, is whether those who illustrate Thucydides’ trap have grasped its implications. To clarify them, together with the creator of the formula, the political scientist Graham Allisonit is worth mentioning the “tragedy of the great powers”, which is at the heart of the offensive realism of John Mearsheimer: the structure of the international system and the competition for regional hegemony, according to the scholar, make war the most likely outcome. Faced with such a perspective, the alternative version to political realism, defensive realism, is confident that the path of compromise will always remain viable. A sort of self-limitation is needed, which preserves the main interests of each party involved, removing the specter of all-out struggle. And if the stakes are so delicate, if the side effect of failure is so pernicious, it is logical that heavy sacrifices are necessary. Even on a moral level.
Taiwan’s sacrifice and Washington’s new red lines
In a recent essay of his, Charles Glasera leading exponent of this current, suggests exactly this to the United States: to retreat (in the sense of settling on a safer line); defend oneself; continue to compete. Applied to the Indo-Pacific region, the argument will have to scandalize the beautiful souls of the editorialists: the first casualty of peace could be the independence of Taipei. “Fight a war in East Asia to preserve democracy in Taiwan,” he writes Glaser“it would put the security and possibly even the survival of the United States in serious danger.” «The United States’ best option», which does not mean the perfect one, just the most appropriate to the situation, «is to end its commitment towards Taiwan (…), instead maintaining its alliance commitments towards Japan, South Korea and the Philippines». It means that the factor from which a serious accident would arise can be eliminated, specifying, at the same time, that the “red lines” (Il Foglio) exist in Washington as in Beijing.
Of course, this assumes that Trumpapart from “doing business”, wants to maintain certain traditional alliances that cost money, but are a sign of the American ability to project influence. And, therefore, they exert deterrent functions on Chinese ambitions. On the other hand, the outrage over the separation from Taipei overlooks that Xi It does enjoy many advantages, but suffers from just as many elements of weakness. The Donald’s Armada did not offer a memorable performance in Iran. But the Dragon, militarily, is still behind. And on chips, although he denies it, he needs the stars and stripes expertise. The former UN undersecretary, Kim Won Sooexplained it to the Corriere: the Chinese leadership would prefer a peaceful annexation of Taiwan. “It cannot afford to engage in a long and potentially painful war.” Instead of fighting, the US can “do business” by exploiting its leverage. Unlike the EU, which leaves business to Beijing, offering itself on a silver platter.
The global katéchon and the rediscovery of the sense of limit
The fate of relations between the two blocs, at least in the immediate future, is unlikely to rest on anything better than a slowing dynamic. An ambiguity that discourages China’s reckless undertakings. A katéchon that slows down the rise of the emerging power and, perhaps, the collapse of the declining one. No automatism, for better or for worse, can be considered given. The future of humanity is decided on the basis of the precarious balances indicated by Massimo Cacciari: the rediscovery of the sense of limit, first and foremost spatial; ergo, the political will to find accommodation, rather than chasing the infinitely expanding chimera of the World State. «Progress», he must recognize Fukuyama“encounters major obstacles.” Well: the end of history can wait.
