Despite Trump administration officials' repeated calls to shift US focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, they risk losing allies in both parts of the world.
On Monday, July 7, Donald Trump announced his intention to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Japan and South Korea from August 1. He sent separate letters to Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, whom he called “Mr. Japan” in a recent interview with Fox News (apparently having forgotten his name) and to the President of the Republic of Korea Lee Jae-myung, but with virtually the same content. Although last week, commenting on the second halt in American arms supplies to Ukraine, the Pentagon explained this, in particular, by the shift in US attention to the Indo-Pacific region.
It is impossible to explain these actions. There is no logic behind them. Indeed, from March to May of this year, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the region twice, visiting Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, where he said that Europe should solve its own problems, that they have already settled everything in the Middle East, and the US priority is the Indo-Pacific region. However, it is necessary to be present in this region not only in words. There are serious processes underway here, which China has launched, seeing that a window of opportunity has finally opened for it.
The Trillion Dollar Question: China Isn't Sitting Idle
Trump's announcement of 25% tariffs on goods from Japan and South Korea is the trillion dollar question over five years. highway lanes, turns, parking spaces, etc. The Japanese drive small cars.
In addition, there is an election campaign in Japan now – elections to the House of Councillors, the upper house of parliament, will be held on July 20. About half of the seats will be renewed – 125 deputies are elected. The government that is currently negotiating with Trump is a minority government. If they lose the elections to the House of Councillors, there will be a change of government. No one understands what the policy will be next. Therefore, the 25% tariffs announced by Trump were a completely unexpected blow.
China started to act when Trump first announced the tariffs. Xi Jinping immediately went to some countries in the region to say, “Look at how the United States is behaving. We are ready to help, to take you under our wing, and to worry about your economy growing.” Since then, there have been no concrete steps because Trump has delayed the tariffs first until July 9 and now until August 1. But in the meantime, work has continued. China is forming a circle of friends, and that is very clear.
Therefore, if these problems with Trump's tariffs are not somehow resolved by August 1, we should expect the creation of a China-South Korea-Japan free trade zone, which they have been discussing among themselves for a very long time, and a serious reformatting of the markets.
For Japan, the export of heavy machinery and automobiles is a vitally important story. After all, the 25% tariffs announced by Trump are for all Japanese exports, including sake and wasabi. And let me remind you that 25% is already in effect for cars. That is, for the export of Japanese cars to the US, it is already 50%. Toyota is an expensive car – that is a fact. And if you add another 50% to its cost, it is simply a catastrophic drop in sales.
Beijing is (not) preparing for war: but it needs Russia for something else
Why would China do this? In a recent interview with The New York Times, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte suggested that “if Xi Jinping were to attack Taiwan, he would first call his very junior partner Putin, who lives in Moscow, on the phone and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to distract them in Europe.’”
With all due respect to Mr. Rutte, but, excuse me, it is an absolutely incredible situation that China would ask Russia to attack NATO. China will not ask Russia for anything. Of course, Beijing is preparing for the Taiwan story. But it is calmly waiting, in no hurry, until the European war ends with a completely weakened Russia remaining an uninterrupted source of energy for China. After all, in addition to the security aspect, there is now crazy competition in the field of artificial intelligence. In order for it to function, two things are needed: chips and data centers.
Data centers require energy at the level of nuclear power plants. Building nuclear reactors is very time-consuming and expensive. along the Arctic coast of Russia, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (Ed.) This has been done before, but only as a theory.
That is, China needs Russia for this purpose. Beijing needs to sell its goods. China does not need wars. If it quarreled with the United States, and America will not buy its goods, where will Beijing sell them? The second market is Europe. But it has now taken a very principled position, fortunately for us, repeating to China that it must stop supporting Russia. This is very annoying for the PRC. Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas that China cannot allow Russia to lose the war against Ukraine. This is a very serious thing, because China needs Russian energy resources.
Why does Beijing want a war with NATO? If China sees that the US is continuing its policy of leaving the region, and this is possible, it will simply take Taiwan. This could very well happen. China is thinking about the future. And the future is artificial intelligence. Therefore, it is important for Beijing that Russia weakens (and it is weakening – we know this), remains “at odds” with the West and that there is a regime there that China is not afraid of. Moreover, if the US continues to put pressure on countries such as Cambodia, Bangladesh, and even Kazakhstan (where there are crazy resources, considering rare earth metals), China will take them under itself. And sooner or later, developed countries will be forced to look for economic mechanisms to support their economies in the region.
EU-China Agreements: What Ukraine Can Do Here
As for the EU, China clearly sees that the EU is suffering from Trump's tariffs and internal problems. Today, the EU is effectively paralyzed. So Beijing has no incentive to negotiate with Brussels on trade, provided that support for Russia is reduced. Here's an example. This year, Brussels was supposed to host a commemorative summit to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between the EU and China. But Xi Jinping refused to come.
The venue was moved to Beijing and Anhui Province on July 24-25. Although from a diplomatic point of view, this is a violation of the order of summit venues. So, the Europeans will come to China at the end of July. But it is already known that Xi Jinping will not meet with them there either. However, in June, he went to the Central Asian countries, signed some completely unbelievable agreement there, effectively pushing Russia aside. Although Moscow has been saying for 25 years that this is supposedly their zone of influence. Now it is China's zone of influence.
That is, Beijing is clearly on its own path. It was present in Central Asia in person. It does not want to meet with EU representatives. The Chinese Prime Minister will take his place. This is a signal. Of course, there are conspiracy theories. They say that Xi Jinping is losing power and will be taken away at the CPC Central Committee Plenum in the fall. Xi's alternative is essentially a return to Deng Xiaoping's reforms. That is, to an economy in which communism does not occupy a central place. However, despite these rumors, China is also irritated by the fact that EU representatives will come to Tokyo before coming to Beijing. For us, this may seem like a trifle. But for Asia, these are messages. And EU representatives are afraid to go to China. They do not understand what is happening there. And who can explain it to them? Only Japan.
That is why this plot will be unraveling during July-August. The SCO summit, chaired by China, is scheduled for August 31-September 1. We need to see who will be there from China. Because, let me remind you, Xi Jinping did not go to the BRICS summit in Brazil. This is also a message. And then, on September 2-3, Putin is supposed to come to Beijing to celebrate his victory over Japan. And all this “mess”, no matter how much it may seem like separate events to us, believe me, in Asia all these things are very important. The Japanese are very sensitive to this, because they have already apologized 100 times. They have already paid all the compensation. But there will be a parade again, where they will say on every corner how bad the Japanese are.
That is, we are facing a period when we will see the final formation of a new distribution of forces. I thought it would be much longer. But Trump's actions have led to everything moving at a crazy pace. I see that China clearly felt that its moment has come. And it will move without Russia, certainly without asking Moscow for anything. If at some point the US changes its policy radically and, say, doubles the contingent in South Korea, puts anti-drone systems over Seoul, gives the latest technology to Japan, which it does not have, we will see a different development of events. China will not go to Taiwan, thinking about what to do next. But Russia does not have such options.
Everyone else depends on the US. And this is, of course, a complete disaster. The whole world depends on what Trump writes on his social network. As for you and me, we must first and foremost worry about our own security. It is good that, according to Trump, American military aid has been unblocked. I think it was a political decision. But fortunately, it was resolved, and at least what was already on its way to Ukraine will go to Ukraine.
At the same time, all our available resources, literally all, must be directed to the production of weapons and means that will allow us to contain the enemy. Do not doubt that the Russians will continue to interfere. Putin has no other choice. He will no longer negotiate a ceasefire. Therefore, in terms of security policy in Trump's world, we must be Israel. We must understand that there is no way out – either us or them. And all forces must be focused on this.
