Obama blames Trump for emboldened China
Ryan King
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During a recent speaking event in Australia, former President Barack Obama pinned the blame for China’s increasingly hostile behavior on his successor.
Observing that China’s conduct and attitude toward the world began to evolve “once I left office,” Obama surmised that Chinese President Xi Jinping sensed an opening when former President Donald Trump took command.
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“With my successor coming in, I think he saw an opportunity because the U.S. president didn’t seem to care that much about a rules-based international system,” Obama said, the Daily Mail reported. “As a consequence, I think China’s attitude [is], ‘Well, we can take advantage of what appears to be a vacuum internationally on a lot of these issues.'”
In the Obama era, fissures began to deepen with Beijing over the South China Sea as China became increasingly assertive. Disagreements over human rights concerns also festered, but relations appear to have deteriorated in the time since. Obama described Xi as a “forceful and confident” leader.
Obama characterized the relationship between Washington and Beijing as “significantly strained” and contended that tensions are unlikely to “go away anytime soon.”
“Nor should they, because I think there are some fundamental differences in terms of how we operate when you look at the South China Sea,” he added, per NCA Newswire.
“The fact of the matter is, is that if China starts claiming what had previously been international waters, that is going to make life difficult for its neighbors and for everyone long term,” he said. “I don‘t even think it’s going to be good for China.”
Ironically, Trump long blamed his predecessors, such as Obama, for allowing the United States to get “ripped off” by “unfair” trade deals and levied tariffs against Beijing demanding fair treatment.
At various times, Trump appeared to fawn over Xi’s power. Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton alleged that Trump was unfazed by alleged human rights atrocities against the Uyghur minority population by the Chinese government.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Trump of instructing him to “shut the hell up” about China during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. In public, Trump also voiced skepticism of U.S. alliances abroad and vowed to put “America first” during his first term in office.
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Obama’s remarks came at a talk series on Tuesday with former Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop in Sydney. His tour is expected to be quite lucrative.
China has quickly emerged as a top foreign policy predicament for President Joe Biden. Earlier this year, a Chinese spy balloon drifted through U.S. airspace for nearly a week, and tensions have been frayed since. The House has established a bipartisan committee on China to evaluate the approach to Beijing.