With the expected appointments of Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mike Waltz to cabinet positions, President-elect Donald Trump is putting together what some China hawks call a tough-on-China “dream team.”
Both lawmakers are harsh China critics. If confirmed, Rubio would be the first sitting secretary of state under Beijing sanctions and banned from traveling to China. Waltz, asked to be Trump’s national security adviser, is one of the most vocal China critics in Congress. Both men are likely to be central to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s fears of a rise in tensions under Trump.
Still, from Beijing’s perspective, it could have been worse.
People who consult with senior Chinese officials say that for now at least, Beijing is relieved that several Republicans considered particular threats by the Communist Party, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, aren’t in the mix.
“The cabinet choices are viewed as bad by China,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. “But for now, there appears to be still room for dialogue.” Sun said that if Trump had picked people seen as directly threatening the Communist Party’s core interests and its hold on power, “then that room for dialogue would be completely gone, from China’s point of view.”
In a speech in the summer of 2020, Pompeo called on the Chinese people to work with the U.S. to change the party’s behavior. Later, one passage from Pompeo’s memoir, “Never Give an Inch,” in which he called on the U.S. to grant full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, enraged Xi as the book made the rounds in Beijing in early 2023, people familiar with the matter have said. China has repeatedly warned the U.S. not to meddle over Taiwan, which it considers its own territory.
Another Republican China is especially wary of is Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former national security adviser. O’Brien has indicated that the U.S. should try to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end and then attempt to peel Moscow away from Beijing.
At a press briefing Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said he had no comment about the expected appointments.
Political strategists in Washington say the two cabinet-level choices could make it harder for Beijing to try to take advantage of Trump’s penchant for deals, potentially empowering those who want to accelerate the effort to decouple the U.S. economy from that of China.
One of them is Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative during Trump’s first term. The president-elect has told allies that he wants Lighthizer, who has openly advocated for cutting off nearly all of China’s access to America’s markets, technology and capital, as the administration’s trade czar. That role would likely give Lighthizer oversight on trade policy across the administration, including at the Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Xi and his aides have worked for months to prepare for heightened economic tensions with Washington. China is increasing efforts to court U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, doubling down on central control to fortify the Chinese economy, and readying a tool kit to hit back at any U.S. moves to shut Chinese products out of its market.
Meanwhile, senior Chinese officials also are planning to step up courtship of American business leaders to try to counterbalance the China hard-liners on Trump’s foreign-policy team, according to the people who consult with Beijing. Chief among their targets, they say, is Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive officer of Tesla, which makes half its electric vehicles in China.
Late last week, Tesla became one of the first automakers in China to earn a certification that indicates all vehicles produced at Tesla’s gigafactory in Shanghai comply with China’s standards for automotive data security. The so-called “vehicle privacy protection” certification could encourage more purchases of Tesla EVs in China by individuals, businesses and even government agencies.
During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to impose tariffs of up to 60% on imports from China. If implemented, such a tariff increase would put in jeopardy Xi’s manufacturing-focused economic policy, which has led to cheap Chinese steel, EVs, solar panels and other products flooding the world.
The Xi leadership in the past year has largely ignored calls from the Biden administration and policymakers elsewhere to change the policy. The prospect of a large-scale trade fight with the Trump administration is hardening Beijing’s drive to further beef up production and reduce the country’s reliance on other nations.
In an article Monday, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, stressed the need to foster “internal circulation”—party-speak for giving priority to domestic production capabilities and markets as China’s main growth drivers.
Rubio was among a handful of U.S. officials China sanctioned twice in 2020 as both countries were feuding over issues including allegations of genocide in China’s Xinjiang region and Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong. Rubio sponsored a bill intended to prevent the import of goods made in Xinjiang, and President Biden later signed it into law.
Wang Yiwei, a professor of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said China would find a way to work around the sanctions on Rubio, noting that while the restrictions could apply to Rubio as an individual, they might not apply to the office of secretary of state.
“This is something they can discuss,” Wang said.
Pompeo was also sanctioned by China in early 2021, but only as he was leaving office.
Waltz, a former Army Green Beret and combat veteran of Afghanistan, is one of Congress’s most hawkish members regarding China. He said in 2021, “We are in a Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party.”
In contrast with Trump’s stance on trade, his perspective on whether the U.S. should come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion has been more ambiguous. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last month, Trump suggested a transactional approach to the self-governed island, indicating he might use tariffs as a tool to deter China from trying to take control of Taiwan by force.
During a regular news briefing on Tuesday, Wang Liang-yu, head of the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry’s Department of North American Affairs, said Taipei is “keeping a close eye on the potential lineup for Trump’s new administration.”
For the Xi leadership, another concern, in addition to Trump’s tariff threats, is a “reverse Nixon” scenario. Much as former President Richard Nixon sought to use China to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the U.S. now might seek to turn Moscow against Beijing, a potentially huge strategic blow to Xi’s security-focused agenda.
The Kremlin has increasingly relied on Beijing to help Russia get around Western sanctions and sustain its war in Ukraine. The Chinese leadership is worried that a U.S.-facilitated end to the war—a campaign promise by Trump—could pave the way for a detente between Washington and Moscow, potentially leaving Beijing out in the cold.
For now, the absence of Pompeo and O’Brien from Trump’s cabinet lineup is expected to give Beijing only small comfort. Trump said over the weekend that Pompeo won’t be invited to join his incoming administration.
Like O’Brien, both Rubio and Waltz have publicly expressed support for Trump’s efforts to bring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to an end, and for Washington to take an even tougher economic and military stance on China, seen as the U.S.’s top geopolitical rival.
“The threat that will define this century is China,” Rubio said in a 2022 speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
Austin Ramzy, Yoko Kubota and Joyu Wang contributed to this article.
Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com
