In the past several weeks, it has become accepted wisdom (or a kind of creeping terror for many) that Donald Trump, yup, the actual president-elect of the United States, tweets first and then denies it all later. Or, worse, when pushed hard on the fictional content of his tweets, he doubles down on his initial insults or misstatements and then just heaps further obloquy and a new round of post-factual knowledge upon a victim or two, just to make sure that once they are dead, they stay dead. His most recent victim was Chuck Jones, the head of the United Steelworkers local 1999 in Indianapolis, Indiana, for having the temerity to contest the accuracy of Donald Trump’s maths regarding the number of jobs “saved” at the Carrier factory from Trump’s intervention.

Of course, Trump has been doing all of this, even as he has just added one more general (with perhaps one or more still in the pipeline) to his cabinet in the person of retired Marine Lt-General John Kelly to be head of Homeland Security. Kelly was nominated on Thursday, along with a vigorous climate change denier – Oklahoma Attorney-General Scott Pruitt – to be the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt, it can be charitably said, is a friend of the petroleum energy sector, rather than Gaia’s protector.

According to the latest leaks from Trump Tower, the president-elect is now also poised to pick fast-food (Hardee’s and Carl’s) company executive Andrew Puzder, as his labour secretary. Puzder has taken a stand against raising the minimum wage, so he should fit right in with the zillionaires around the cabinet table. Of course the president-elect has a well-known fondness for fast food, so maybe there are ulterior motives at play here.

Meanwhile, eager (or fearful) observers continue to wait on who finally gets the nod for Secretary of State and for the post of US trade representative. Both positions are, obviously, vitally important to every nation beyond America’s borders, especially given Trump’s aggressive, hard-line stance on international trade negotiations, and his transactional, sometimes jaundiced view of alliances such as Nato. As far as the Secretary of State position is concerned, it might end up being Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, or retired General David Petraeus, or perhaps one of a list of others on a growing rather than shrinking range of possibles. And as far as the US Trade Representative position – well, not a word in public yet.

For audiences of the reality show scenario that has been Trump’s transition process to date, his senior appointments process has been both entertaining and frightening by halves, but much of it seems to have been bolstered by Donald Trump’s universe of factoids about other American politicians (try looking on Google under the topic of Pizza Comet Ping Pong), or some fascinating fairy tales about government policy (as with the possibility of stripping citizenship from anyone willing to burn a flag). Bizarre stuff, perhaps, but not – at least not yet – actually harmful, at least until the actual Trump administration begins to act upon these things, beginning at one second after midday on January 20.

Some of his attention has been directed externally too, of course. By now, most readers are familiar with Donald Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, with or without that Photoshopped picture of the two of them, bare-chested and sitting astride an unfortunate horse. Then there were his misadventures of trying to connive in the appointment of Nigel Farage as Great Britain’s ambassador to the US, or even his “two for the price of one” meetings with Indian property developers eager to flog Trump’s name on their buildings, or daughter Ivanka Trump’s unprecedented moments with Shinzo Abe, the visiting Japanese prime minister.

But, so far at least, probably nothing can yet compare with his upsetting the apple cart, tossing the baby out with the bathwater, throwing all caution to the winds (go ahead, feel free to add yet other clichés) to establish an entirely new international order in East Asia – between a nosh of a Big Mac for lunch and then the hungry embrace of a taco bowl for supper.

For what seems an eternity by now, Donald Trump has been bleating on about the perfidious Chinese and their evil ways. About the only thing he hasn’t accused them of is fluoridating America’s drinking water to weaken the nation’s vital essence. In Trump’s head, it is all about how those evil ones are stealing American jobs; artificially keeping their currency low enough to outflank American exporters of US-made goods or even domestic sales of US-made products from what few jobs remain; manufacturing climate change lies in order to overprice American goods where manufacturers must be cognisant of pollution abatement, as opposed to the Chinese who refuse to take any awareness of it – plus a whole litany of other crimes against America too numerous to list. And this is not even to mention a Chinese strategic gambit among the islets of the South China Sea both for resources and geopolitical reasons that, at least according to the president-elect, no one else had noticed until he had had the clear-seeing vision to point it out.

In a number of previous columns, such as one written on November 10, this writer has explored how Donald Trump’s argument with China might be seen as part of a larger, more comprehensive realignment of strategic relationships – a near-reversal of Henry Kissinger’s triangulation of US ties with two other nations, with China positioned against a still-dangerous Soviet Union, back in the early 1970s. The fact that Kissinger’s realignment to establish a relationship with China could take place, despite the obvious irritant of a still-ongoing Vietnam War, pointed to the importance of that new relationship to both nations, and the fact that geopolitics could out-trump ideological predispositions, once the value of such ties could be seen by both sides.

Of course, the potential of that Kissinger realignment came along when China’s reservoirs of strength were still mostly in manpower and military hardware (along with the country’s strategic location vis-à-vis the Soviet Union), rather than through any real global economic heft. That came along a decade or more later, following the end of the Cultural Revolution – and Deng Xiaoping’s insistence that being rich was far better than being ideologically pure – but dirt poor.

Despite the bluster and blather that seems to come along inevitably with Donald Trump, his imminent arrival as the actual US President, with all the power that implies, makes it increasingly important to try to analyse whether or not – buried deep down somewhere – there really is a kernel of strategic savvy in his reactions to China. Let’s take it as “given” that Trump really sees international relations as a transactional game, pretty much the way he saw real estate negotiations throughout his life.

Rather than the usual understandings diplomacy tries to achieve via positioning partners (or even antagonists) in relationships so that the results are something that can plausibly be termed a win-win outcome, generally speaking, a real estate purchase can be seen as a form of a zero-sum game. One side gets to own the building or the rights to build it, even as the other side is stuck with being allowed to look through the fence while the construction work goes on. Then the loser must try again elsewhere.

In similar eventualities in diplomacy or international relations, however, such results can head up the escalation ladder towards armed hostilities or vicious trade wars, or both. But such ritualised combat has been Trump’s life lesson from decades of construction and real estate investment, rather than from a life in diplomacy or politics where one tries not to create implacable enemies who then see their life’s goal as a chance to get even – with interest.

As a result, the question resolves to whether or not, despite all the lightning, thunder, smoke, mirrors and camouflage draped around it, there actually is some strategic method to Trump’s seeming madness vis-à-vis China. In his mind, he obviously sees Russia as a more reliable partner (or at least a very much less competitive one in trade terms) than China. As a result, from all his rhetoric so far, it is a good guess that he has placed his chips on a closer relationship with Putin’s Russia as America’s best partner for the coming decade. One can argue that this putting of all of the US’s eggs in Russia’s faux-Fabergé basket is a less than optimum choice, given Russia’s declining population, its increasingly collapsed economic state, and its disliked and mistrusted circumstances with its neighbours (go ahead, ask Ukrainians, Georgians, Estonians, Finns, Latvians, and the Poles, just for starters).

But the Trumpian argument seems to be that in our current dog-eat-dog, zero-sum game of a world, China is a nastier antagonist due to its relentless economic pressures on America. Moreover, the US needs an ally that won’t flinch in order to deal with ISIS and other Islamist terror groups infesting the Middle East – and also put some real pressure on China’s flank. If this is the Hobbesian world Trump inhabits, Russia’s the one to hold hands with, going forward. And it is a turnabout as fair play for China after that soft ride it has been given since the 1970s.

Of course, there is a bit of a back story to this possible strategic genius as well. When Donald Trump took a phone call from the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, the other day, it was the first time a US president or president-elect had spoken directly with a Taiwanese leader since at least as far back as 1979 – and probably not since Richard Nixon went to China in 1972. In 1979, the US had accepted the one-China policy and established full diplomatic relations with Beijing. Accordingly, international relations analysts and diplomatic veterans were appalled at Trump’s apparently impromptu telephone call.

But, it turns out that Donald Trump’s telephone conversation with Tsai was not simply a matter of instant, unreal diplomatic skill in figuring out how to triangulate with China, or the result of some erratic, unthinking action. It was actually the result of some considerable back-room manoeuvring ahead of time, by some very long-in-the-tooth Republican politicians who just happened to be contracted to give a boost to Taiwan’s prominence internationally. Now who would have thunk that?

Former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, the man who was defeated badly by President Bill Clinton in 1996 in the presidential race, has for some years been the point man in a PR and lobbying firm responsible for an extensive effort to keep up support for Taiwan by both influentials and ordinary citizens in America – especially now that there are no longer formal diplomatic ties. It turns out Dole and company were the people who organised the phone call that gave so many people a shudder.

As the New York Times noted about this conversation:

“Mr. Dole, a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, co-ordinated with Mr Trump’s campaign and the transition team to set up a series of meetings between Mr Trump’s advisers and officials in Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed last week with the Justice Department. Mr Dole also assisted in successful efforts by Taiwan to include language favourable to it in the Republican Party platform, according to the documents.”

But it shouldn’t have been a surprise that someone like Dole was involved in that way. He has always been part of the wing of the Republican Party that felt strongly that Nationalist China (the government that had fled the mainland to Taiwan after their defeat in the Chinese civil war after World War II) was an American ally and a bulwark against communist expansion into the rest of East Asia. That wing of Republicanism has always supported strong military aid to Taiwan, support for it at the UN when it held the Security Council seat, and applause for its – genuine – movement towards a competitive democratic polity. In addition, Republicans and others were appreciative of Taiwan’s increasing economic strength as one of the “Four Little Dragons” of East Asia.

But there is another strand of Republicanism vis-à-vis China; one that reaches right back to the early 1900s as American business increasingly entered China to search for an important market for American goods – from petroleum products and manufactured goods to agricultural exports. Allied to this was a long progression of medical missionary endeavours in China – most of whom drew upon Republican-style political support back home. This strand of thinking, however, increasingly began to see post-revolutionary China, even under communism, as once again becoming a market for American trade. This branch of the party and its friends in the business community began to line up behind the Nixonian opening to China, instead of remaining stuck with that smallish island of Taiwan.

It is possible to argue that Trump’s bluster and rage about Chinese trade and its economic perfidies have – coupled with his Taiwan conversation – been calibrated precisely to put China a bit on the back foot, or onto scoring an own goal in dealing with the “new sheriff in town”. Now, add to this mix Trump’s early meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier – a politician who is an international relations, realpolitik type, eager to spread Japan’s geostrategic wings a bit – and maybe one has the makings of the opening stages of one of Trump’s real estate-style, cut-throat negotiations.

Most recently, as his next move, Trump announced his first ambassadorial appointment beyond his pick for the UN spot – Iowa Governor Terry Branstad for the US Embassy in Beijing. Not a bad choice, that. Branstad actually has a prior relationship with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Xi spent time in Iowa in his earlier years as a regional agricultural policy bureaucrat, and then again when he visited the US after becoming China’s president. And China is a major market for Iowa agricultural products, signalling, perhaps, an understanding that US-China trade actually is too big to be allowed to wither on the vine. For some earlier insights on this saga, take a look at this.

Commenting on the just-announced nomination, Time noted:

“The Iowa governor has a long connection with China and his nomination is seen as a goodwill gesture. The Chinese government has praised Donald Trump’s nomination of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad — described as an ‘old friend’ — as the next US ambassador to China, in a move seen as a conciliatory gesture after last week’s protocol-shattering phone call between the US President-elect and the President of Taiwan….

“Chinese officials issued stern rebukes for the diplomatic faux pas, though were effusive about the appointment of Branstad, who has known Xi since 1985, when the Chinese leader visited Iowa as a young official heading a five-strong agricultural research delegation. It was Branstad’s first term as state governor at the time.

“‘Governor Branstad is an old friend of the Chinese people,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a press briefing. ‘We welcome him to play a great role in promoting the development of China-US relations.’”

Assuming there has actually been some real planning by the Trump team in thinking through the relationship with China, and it is not going to be just a series of threats about tariffs or else (or else what?), and that they can keep up the plan rather than lose it all in some hectic post-midnight TWEETS IN ALL CAPS and wild-eyed remarks in speeches, it is just possible the Trump administration will evolve a China policy rooted in the real world, rather than something suitable for rabble-rousing during a campaign swing in front of a shuttered factory. Maybe. Of course, the Chinese have a little bit of experience at this diplomatic shuffle too, and they have a few moves available to them as well, ranging from more pressure in the South China Sea to more inducements for nations to line up with their vision of a Pacific development community, and even greater efforts, perhaps, for cyber-sleuthing in US businesses and government databases.

On trade, as Kyle Churchman wrote late last year for the National Bureau for Asian Research:

“The past year has been a pivotal one for China’s proposed strategic investments in Asia. At the top of Beijing’s regional diplomatic agenda was the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, a series of land- and sea-based trade routes intended to closely link China with regions to its west and south: Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and Europe. In addition, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – a multilateral intergovernmental bank launched by China to finance infrastructure development in Asia, including OBOR-related projects – held its signing ceremony in June with the participation of 57 nations. Together, these two investment initiatives reflect Beijing’s proactive attempt to reshape the Asian economic and political order.”

Accordingly, this game, even if Trump is thoroughly in control of his agenda, his words and his activities, is not all America’s way. But however it goes, the result of the Trump approach to China is going to have profound effects on America and the world’s trading system. And that includes you too, gentle reader. DM

Photo: US President-elect Donald Trump maks an appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower to address reporters in New York, NY, USA, 06 December 2016. EPA/ALBIN LOHR-JONES