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The writer is principal at the Marathon Initiative and served as US assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs from 2021-25
Amid an otherwise chaotic foreign policy, the Trump administration has settled on a surprisingly coherent approach towards China — one premised on deference, aimed at buying time and built on the conviction that accommodation will earn goodwill. That doctrine is now setting the stage for President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May. But it is as misguided as it is dangerous.
There is an alluring logic to hitting pause until the US is strong enough to prevail. Now that Beijing has demonstrated its leverage on critical minerals, the US needs time to bolster its supply chains and supercharge its industrial base. But the Trump administration is repeating a familiar mistake in betting that backing off will produce reciprocal restraint. This approach has failed repeatedly.
When the Obama administration declined to challenge China’s island-building in the South China Sea, artificial reefs became military installations. When the US absorbed years of state-sponsored cyber theft and responded with little more than quiet diplomacy and symbolic sanctions, accommodation only validated China’s behaviour. When Trump, in his first term, paused tariffs in exchange for a phase one trade deal, China pocketed the relief, missed its purchase commitments, and deferred structural reforms to a phase two that never came. And when Washington and the world soft-pedalled demands for an investigation into Covid’s origins, Beijing stonewalled, samples were destroyed and the window for accountability closed.
The Trump administration’s new China strategy ignores that history. And, in a bid to placate Beijing, the concessions are piling up. The administration has curtailed support for Taiwan, loosened technology controls, and scaled back investigations of China-linked cyber attacks.
Predictably, this policy of accommodation has emboldened Beijing. China’s leaders are growing more confident, drawing conclusions about Washington’s waning will to defend its interests or stand with its partners. When Trump rolled back his tariffs in the face of China’s new export controls, Beijing responded by hitting the accelerator and introducing stricter measures. This regulatory grip has been further tightened with new rules that give Chinese authorities wide discretion over foreign companies.
The regional consequences are equally grave. American allies throughout the Indo-Pacific are unsettled by what they see. Countries in south-east Asia are wondering why the US is no longer openly challenging China’s illegal claims in the South China Sea. Longstanding partners are trying to discern why Washington failed to back Tokyo during its most recent stand-off with Beijing. In capital after capital, the question being asked is not whether China is a threat, but whether the US will show up.
In response, governments are considering reorienting their own approach to China. If Washington is unwilling to push back against Beijing, then Canberra, Manila, New Delhi and Seoul — not to mention Berlin, London and Paris — will have little reason to absorb the costs of a harder line. No surprise then that allies are themselves beginning to hedge, following Washington’s lead. This threatens to reverse years of hard-fought efforts to build the very coalitions required to deter Chinese aggression and coercion.
Perhaps most tragically, the Trump administration is not actually using the time it is buying to strengthen the US. The war in Iran has drained inventories, disrupted maintenance cycles, and made the US military less ready for a crisis in the Pacific. Tariffs on allies are corroding the relationships essential to any serious economic strategy towards China. Europe is being pushed away precisely when alignment matters most. Talent is flowing out of the US and government investment in research and development is being cut. A strategy of consolidation is defensible as a temporary measure — if paired with genuine self-strengthening. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
The May summit in Beijing could produce lofty pronouncements and carefully staged imagery. Trump may even walk away with pledges for Chinese purchases of soyabeans and aeroplanes or a new body to manage the trade relationship. Those are not the concern. The real problem is what Trump’s visit might ratify. If it locks in a posture of strategic deference as the operating logic of America’s China policy, the costs will mount. Beijing will conclude that it can coerce and negotiate what it wants out of Washington. Allies will decide that US commitments cannot be trusted. And the US will discover, when it eventually decides to compete in earnest, that it has less leverage, fewer partners and wider gaps to close.
Washington needs to stop mistaking accommodation for sound strategy.
