Xi’s Blurry Vision for China

Is President Xi Jinping leading President Trump down the primrose path? Feature Mr. Xi’s flattery, during a stroll through the communist dictator’s garden at Beijing, of the commander in chief. “I could get used to this,” Mr. Trump effused, asking if Mr. Xi often invites foreign leaders into this retreat. “Very rarely,” insisted Mr. Xi, who pointed out, too, some intertwined shrubbery. “Two trees merged into one,” mused Mr. Xi.The Chinese tyrant’s arboreal observation, per the Times, was “a possible allusion to Mr. Xi’s calls for the two countries to work together.” Indeed, this illusion of partnership suffused this week’s summit, fostered by the entourage of American chief executives and Mr. Trump’s touting of Sino-American trade deals. Yet Mr. Xi’s charm offensive has a dark edge. Feature his warning that America’s handling of Free China poses “an extremely dangerous situation.”Mr. Xi told Mr. Trump that the future of the island democracy on Taiwan is “is the most critical issue in China–U.S. relations,” and, “if handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash,” threatening our “relationship.” This kind of talk undermines America’s longtime ally, the Republic of China. Mr. Xi’s warning comes, too, amid threats to capture Taiwan, never ruled by the communist regime, and bring it under Beijing’s control.After Mr. Xi’s saber-rattling, it’s hardly encouraging to hear Mr. Trump equivocate over approving an arms sale package of some $14 billion to Free China. Taiwan’s democratic regime, founded by Sun Yat-sen, a New York Sun contributor, just voted to boost its defense budget by $25 billion. So this is no moment to cancel the proposed arms sale, which Taiwan calls “not only a security commitment,” but “also a joint deterrent against regional threats.”Mr. Xi is obsessed with the future of Taiwan because the existence of a democratic Chinese government exposes the illegitimacy of communist rule. It was Sun Yat-sen, first leader of the Republic of China, who endorsed “government by the people, of the people, and for the people,” because “I believe in the Chinese people.” His protégé and successor, Chiang Kai-shek, battled against the communist takeover of the mainland, but had to retreat to Taiwan. Even then, Mao’s victory was hollow. “The population is not evincing great joy at the change of power,” a top communist official, Lin Biao, in 1950 lamented to the Soviet Union. Mao threatened to invade Taiwan, but Eisenhower dispatched the Seventh Fleet as a shield against communist aggression. Since then, the democracy that later blossomed on Taiwan seems to prove an increasingly intolerable reproach for Mr. Xi and his camarilla. “Taiwan has shown that the Chinese people and their political culture can, in fact, give rise not just to ‘wealth and power’ but also to a more democratic and enlightened form of governance,” reports sinologist Orville Schell. At a time when “more and more Chinese go into voluntary exile to live in a more open society,” Mr. Schell adds, the leadership of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang during the pre-World War II republic “may provide useful lessons.” Their era, Mr. Schell says, was “the last time” that mainland China “dreamed of a constitutional republic” and “may help prefigure what a very different China might look like someday.” This suggests that Mr. Xi’s vision of a Sino-American partnership features as a counterpart to Washington the wrong Chinese regime. An apt partner for America would be a China reunified not by the regime at Beijing — but by Taipei’s freely elected Legislative Yuan.

Xi’s Blurry Vision for China

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