Abstract

Donald Trump, the 47^th President of the United States, has an opportunity to be a great American President by making good his promise to make America Great Again (MAGA), But he needs a new China policy and a new US-China relationship as well as a broader ‘make All World Great Altogether’ drive to make MAGA successful with the participation of China and others.

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The U.S. foreign policy has an inertia simply because the U.S. has been a superpower ever since WW II. The U.S. benefited from the two world wars and became a world leader despite the existence of the communist Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. became the only superpower. Hence it is understandable that it conducts foreign policies from a strength, preferring to continue its legacy strategy and policies since they have worked and sustained its global leader status throughout the 20^th century. However, entering the 21^st century, the rise of China was rapid while the U.S. was engaged in fighting terrorists and regional wars.

Today, entering the 25^th year of the 21^st century, the world has changed a lot, and the U.S. is facing a whole set of problems: a divided nation with a log-horn political party system, a mounting debt of thirty-five trillion dollars, a struggling economy lacking real industrial capacity other than hanging on a few military-industrial complex selling weapons, and Wall Street busy creating inflated stock fortune manipulating world capital. Regarding the rising China becoming the world’s second economy, the manufacturing powerhouse for the world, and the number one trading partner with 125 countries. The U.S. is still using its legacy foreign policy – suppressing any country rising to threaten the U.S. supreme position.

The 2024 election revealed more about the reality of the state of the U.S. It exhibited why there is a strong ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement. Trump-Vance won with the MAGA force beating Biden-Harris-Walz (Democrats) clutched on the legacy foreign policy suppressing the rising China. Although Trump was a part of the anti-China strategy in his first term and adopted the anti-China rhetoric under the MAGA force’s patriotic spirit, he has won the 47^th presidency and must deliver MAGA demand. To make MAGA successful and lasting beyond the 47^th presidential term, Trump needs to face reality and have a new US-China Relationship.

This article would like to present an argument for picking a new China policy and creating a new US-China relationship. First, we will discuss a little background on China and why a new US-China relationship may be necessary for the Trump presidency (Trump X.0) to succeed, Second, we will present some evidence to support our argument drawing from facts reported by neutral media and observations of international events. The key is that we must be honest, factual, and realistic in analyzing the U.S., what is the real force behind MAGA, and how we can make MAGA succeed.

Americans are very competitive. The U.S. is still a superpower, but the reality is that China has awakened from more than a century of humiliation by foreign invaders. Russia and Canada are the world’s two largest countries in land, and China is the world’s third largest nation with land in comparable size with the U.S. but having four times more population. China has five thousand years of history with wisdom and innovation in its genes. China has 56 ethnic groups but is far more homogeneous culturally than other countries with fewer ethnic groups but more inter-group problems. Human rights and racial equality have been used by Western countries to attack and divide China, Honkies, Taiwanese, Tibetans, and Uighur have been used to agitate China hoping to inflame dissent and unrest, but China proved the West wrong simply by adopting a genuine ‘for the people’ ideology which flexibly accommodates ‘autonomous regions’ to develop their economies with national subsidy. Tibetans maintaining their religion live a better life than their neighbor Indians, Xinjiang Uighur live a more peaceful and prosperous life than most Muslims in Asia and the Middle East. Hong Kong after returning to China did not collapse nor lose its financial and economic status in the world. In contrast, the strategy of exporting ‘democracy’ to Africa, East Europe, Asia, and South America yielded some success but more turmoil from regional wars. What did the U.S. get in the past several decades?

China insists on ‘never interfering in any other country’s domestic affairs’ out of treacherous personal experience. Over a hundred years, China could not complete its revolution to become united as one republic nation simply because there was too much foreign interference during her nation-building. To this day, China cannot have a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, an island was seized by Japan and returned to China by Japan under the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Declaration – which clearly stated that Japan unconditionally surrendered to Allies (Most significant four, U.S., UK, Soviet Union, and China) and returns all seized land from China including Taiwan back to China. Today, Taiwan remains separated from Mainland China due to the current Taiwan government (DPP party) refusing to negotiate with the Mainland China government (CCP party) for unification. There is no advantage for Taiwan people to be separated from Mainland China since Taiwan is economically dependent on Mainland China; 35.2% of its trade is with Mainland China (its largest trading partner) exporting $95.7B to Mainland China and enjoying $25,5B surplus (2023, $25,5-80.5B reported by different tabulations). Taiwan has been purchasing U.S. military equipment for defense with $20B in outstanding orders (including F-16 jets ordered in 2019) in 2024. Taiwan could save all that money and make more trade with Mainland China if it would accept China’s two-system peaceful reunification plan.

Under the U.S. island-chain strategy containing China (in the name of containing the expansion of communism to now suppressing China for U.S. national security concerns), it makes sense for the U.S. to maintain an ambiguous position on the Taiwan issue. The U.S. does not support Taiwan’s independence for above said international treaty obligations and is concerned about giving Mainland China an excuse to use force to take over Taiwan. However, the island-chain strategy is obsolete and illogical in today’s circumstances. The Soviet Union collapsed and China never entered any military alliance with Russia or any other communist country. Maintaining the island-chain strategy is very costly for the U.S. with partners (Singapore, Philippines, Japan, and South Korea) half-heartedly maintaining an alliance and lucrative trading relations with China. In addition, China has modernized its military, especially in its navy, air force, and rocket force to counter the island-chain threat.