Trump is handing over the global leadership of China

PAKIN naught but the majesty Chinese President Xi is showing himself to his American visitor, President Trump, it is hard not to see the two leaders and two countries walking in very different directions.

Xi turned out to be the untenable leader from last month's Congress of the Communist Party. His authority is as great as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The Economist gave him the honorable epithet that is usually reserved for an American president: the most powerful man in the world.

Trump came out of Air Force One [the official American presidential plane] in Beijing on Wednesday with a low popularity. His credibility has also been significantly reduced with polls showing a major decline in trust for the American leadership.

And Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi change, so does the focus of their leadership. While Mr. Trump is obsessed with building walls, Mr. Xi is busy building bridges.

At the World Economic Forum in January, Mr. Xi claimed that China was the new free market champion and globalisation. Its initiative will invest a trillion dollars to connect Asia and Europe via a network of sea lines, roads, railways, and yes, bridges. China will receive access to resources, its export increased industrial capacity and will have a peaceful strategic point of support, which it will translate into more power.

And Mr. Trump avoids multilaterism and global governance, Mr. He always hugs these things.

Mr. Administration. Trump has been reduced to the United Nations, withdrew from the Trans-Picific partnership trade deals, lifted America's commitment to the Paris climate accord, tried to betray the nuclear agreement with Iran, questioned the alliance of America with Europe and Asia, discredited the World Trade Organisation and multistate trade agreements, and sought to close the door for immigrants.

Mr. Xi? He has taken leadership over the environment of climate change, embraced the World Trade Organization system, and increased China's votes at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Beijing is moving ahead with a trade pact that may include the largest Asian economies plus Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States. China is already one of the main contributors to the United Nations budget and its peacekeeping operations. And Mr. Xi is making a decisive game to get the best innovators and scientists in China.

In his place, Mr. Xi is undertaking strategic investments that would enable China to dominate the global economy in the 21st century, including information technology and artificial intelligence where, as Google Eric Schmidt has warned, China will overcome the US in the coming decade. Mr. Xi is all involved in robotics, airspace, high-speed trains, new energy tools, and advanced medical products.

Mr. Trump's investments on the other side of the coal and the Donustoske attempt to return to the modern manufacturing facility would make the U.S. champion solely in the 20th century economy.

All of this for China to do, as the Chinese president himself said, “another choice for the states of the world” and to become a principled arbitrator of something that was long connected to the US: international order. China has an important part in that international order and the globalized world: it needs access to advanced technology and export markets on which its further growth depends.

Beijing continues to control key sectors of its economy in foreign investment. It imposes Dractice requests for foreign companies like getting a Chinese partner and giving up their tech and intellectual property, which other countries don't do to Chinese companies.

Chinese foreign investments may be explosive by using Chinese workers and Chinese contractors instead of local ones, keeping small states in debt and smell.

Mr. Xi to give a new dimension of Chinese influence is challenged by the systematic weaknesses of this country. A lot of debts. Increasing inequality. The slowdown of production, influenced by an age population, a low productivity, and inefficient state-owned companies. Poison air and insufficient water. And a reception system.

But these may not matter. I would never bet against the United States, but if Trump nationalism, protectionism, uniformism and xenophobia continue, the Chinese model will prevail.

The world does not self-organize. And the American influence on international order has advanced liberal values and progressive norms democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, protection of workers' rights, environmental protection, etc. From the dedication to the role of the world leader who has played since World War II, the United States is giving ground to others to make the organization of the world based on their values, not America's.

Xi's not ashamed to show who this other nation is. With Mr. Trump, who handed space to China, the international liberal order that defined the second half of the 20th century, could give way to an Iliberal order. ) New York Times - What?