[3pt14159]

When Trump was elected China had no better time to finally act. A destabilized and distracted west and political cover for actions as responses to Trump's aggressive on China tone.

Even now, we're not out of the woods yet. The west is still dealing with the lingering effects of Trumpism and Covid has balance sheets and attentions. Consolidating power now while nobody in the world will really challenge them. The democrats can't survive a recession on top of the Afghanistan disaster and prolonged Covid. They're not going to really sanction China.

[dillondoyle]

I don't buy this. I think it would have been the WORST time for Xi to act or get aggressive.

Trump is legitimately unstable and so selfish as to try to use the military and provocations - even on US soil he wanted to deploy forces - to win or fulfill his deluded post election craziness.

Just today excerpts came out of Woodward's new book; one revelation is General Milley called up his counterpart in China, kind of roguely, in a Nixon esque attempt to say hey, this guy is freaking crazy let's use bureaucracy to try to maintain status quo and go around any dangerous orders.

[3pt14159]

I'm aware of the book and two things can be true at the same time. The clampdown in HK came at a time when Americans were least likely to lead a coordinated effort to punish it.

China has been way less cautious over the past four or five years, and I do not think Trump being in office is a coincidence.

[vladTheInhaler]

Let's not beat around the bush. Trump is not very smart, and not at all well-informed. In fact he actively removed anyone from his inner circle who showed signs of being either of those things. So I think China was able to move confidently in a lot of areas, because they knew Trump and his cabinet would fail to understand the significance of their actions. This includes erosion of democratic norms in Hong Kong - Trump doesn't understand or care about democratic values, and has in fact attacked them himself domestically, so that represented a huge opportunity for China.

At the same time, Trump is deeply insecure, and is attached to the idea of military power somehow reflecting his own masculinity. Look at his tweets in response to North Korea's provocations, for instance, and how he made them all about him personally. So I think China was careful not to take action that would cause Trump to feel slighted or emasculated and feel a need for direct military action.

So within that narrow area of military pride and perhaps domestic manufacturing, Trump represented a real threat of retaliation and escalation, but beyond that he was pretty much asleep at the wheel.

[mensetmanusman]

Trump was a symptom of a huge disruption due to globalization.

[rjzzleep]

If John Boltons book is to believed Trump was very much pro China behind the scenes, with a lot of senior officials like Pompeo and Bolton pushing for things such as free trade agreements with Taiwan in which Trump had no interest in. His family has a lot of business there after all. But who knows.

At least we know that China calls Trump Trump the nation(china) builder.

https://www.ibtimes.com/why-beijing-may-want-keep-trump-whit...