Sasha Gong writes for American Greatness about President Donald Trump’s upcoming meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.
As Donald Trump prepares for another high-stakes meeting with Xi Jinping, conventional wisdom in Washington and the international press insists that the American president is entering negotiations from a position of weakness. Xi, after all, rules China as a near-absolute leader with no election to fear, no opposition party to challenge him, and a state apparatus capable of moving swiftly and decisively. Trump, by contrast, faces elections, court challenges, media scrutiny, and political resistance at every turn. As Sen. Jack Reed, a leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, “President Trump is going into this meeting terribly weakened.”
But conventional wisdom is often wrong.
The dominant narrative assumes Trump desperately needs China on three fronts: Iran, Taiwan, and trade. The conflict involving Iran threatens global oil markets and gasoline prices that could politically hurt Republicans before the midterms. Taiwan remains the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. And after legal setbacks to his tariff policies in American courts, Trump appears to have less leverage in a trade confrontation than he did several years ago.
Meanwhile, many observers continue to portray China as an unstoppable superpower—the center of global manufacturing, the future leader in artificial intelligence, and a country whose supply-chain dominance leaves America dependent and vulnerable.
Yet this picture ignores a more important reality: authoritarian systems are often far weaker and more unstable than they appear from the outside. One need only look at the former Eastern Bloc.
Western analysts frequently mistake dictatorship for strength. In truth, dictatorship is often the most unpredictable form of government because nobody truly knows what is happening inside the black box.
Xi Jinping’s recent purge of top military officials should have served as a warning sign to the world.
