Beijing has realised that reckless America First policies are alienating old and new friends alike, creating a vacuum it can fill
H
olding court for the cameras in Sharm el-Sheikh last week, a manically self-congratulatory Donald Trump, Gaza’s make-believe saviour, hailed his fellow “tough guys” – tame tyrants, such as Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who helped fabricate his flimsy Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
Yet later this month, the American pharaoh-president is due to face a far less biddable tough guy: China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Bookmakers may withhold odds on the outcome. In the US-China race for 21st-century primacy, Xi is sprinting ahead, assisted by spur-heeled Trump’s many missteps.
It’s amazing that debate still rages, in the UK and US, about the character and aims of China’s expansionist regime. Its aggressive, worldwide economic empire-building, suppression of basic rights in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, regional sabre-rattling and ubiquitous cyber-espionage, allow only one conclusion.
