With 74-year-old President Donald Trump off the world stage, many countries, including Ukraine, breathed a sigh of relief, with Trump pitting the U.S. against China in what became his downfall. While there’s no doubt that U.S. and European companies shifted manufacturing to China, Trump liked to demagogue the issue, blaming China for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and Europe. But if you’re honest of how China became the manufacturing hub for the world’s biggest companies, it has everything do with dollars-and-cents. Assembling and manufacturing in China lost U.S. and European jobs but it also provided cheap inflation-proof goods the U.S. and EU. Truth be told, U.S. and EU consumers weren’t interested in paying higher prices for domestically manufactured goods, especially if there was no quality difference, something obvious to U.S. and EU consumers.
Trump created a fierce competition with China not so much to return manufacturing back to the U.S. but to play politically to his base, also joining with Trump xenophobic message. Even calling the novel coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 the “China virus,” Trump hoped to pin the blame on 67-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping. Whether the virus emerged from a Wuhan laboratory or not, the public wasn’t concerned about holding China accountable, only dealing with the deadly outbreak in the U.S. Trump hoped he could find other allies to join his trade war against Beijing, but, in the end, most countries wanted to end the virus not battling it out with China. Trump hoped that 43-year-old former comedian, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky would go along with his China trade war, only to find out Zelensky, like other leaders, didn’t want to rock the boat.
President Joe Biden, 78, hasn’t quite figured out how to approach China, especially because of his family’s business dealings in China’s energy industry. Zelensky made it clear it would not fight the U.S. battle with China. “There really is this sort of Cold War between China and the United States,” Zelensky said, serving notice to 58-year-old newly minted Secretary of State Tony Blinken that Ukraine would not join the U.S. Cold War with China. “We know the United States is represented in Ukraine, but at the same time, it’s true that Chinese business is also represented. Blinken has already alienated Russian President Vladimir Putin, he can’t afford to get on Xi Jinping’s bad side. Blinken couldn’t contain himself getting into another phony argument about Russian democracy, pushing Putin to free 44-year-old pro-Democracy activist Alexi Navalny and other dissidents.
Zelensky, who refused to step into domestic American politics giving Trump what he wanted on Biden and his 50-year-old son Hunter, the Ukrainian president showed the wisdom to stay out of Trump’s trade wars with China. He figured out that former U.S. Trade Representative Peter Navarro, who wrote the book on China trade wars, was stirring the pot with no benefits in sight. Navarro managed to antagonize Beijing, criticizing its trade policies, but, more importantly, human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Tawain. “I believe that regardless of the nation, the nationality, if people, if business, if a certain country, treats you with respect, respecting your people and borders, they can present in your country. Zelensky has far more problems with Putin who continues to stir the pot in Southeastern Donbass region of Ukraine. Zelensky has bigger fish to fry than joining the U.S. fight with China.
Beijing as successfully lobbied to bring its Covid-19 vaccines to Ukraine and other countries competing with Pfizer, Moderna and now Johnson & Johnson. Zelensky said he has no problem bringing China’s Sinovac Biopharmaceutical vaccine to Ukraine, if supplies of Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson are not available. Zelensky realized that the U.S. and EU have too much on their plate dealing with Covid-19 to supply Ukraine with vaccines. Navarro complained that Ukraine was increasing its trade with China, largely because they were far more amenable to doing business than the United States. Zelensky realized that he has a higher priority of providing goods, services and medicines for his people, than placating U.S. officials, like Nararro, obsessed with a useless trade war with China. Biden finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place, resuming normal business ties with China, while, at the same time, letting relations with Moscow deteriorate.
Zelensky wants Putin to enter serious negotiations about returning the Crimean Peninsula back to Ukraine, while getting Putin to back off supporting Ukraine’s breakaway Donbass region. Zelensky, like many developing countries, see China as an invaluable piece to improving the Ukrainian economy, not getting in the middle of a U.S. food-fight with China. All of Trump and Navarro’s trade war has gotten the U.S. very little, if not hurt the U.S. economy. With Trump gone, Biden can get back to a less combative relationship, letting Beijing do its thing, without condemning the Chinese for Covid-19 or for cracking down in Hong Kong. If Biden and Blinken want to get along with China, it’s no different than Russia, refraining from condemning China’s human rights record. Like Russia, China does what’s good for the Chinese Communist Party, not what’s good for Washington.
