(Bloomberg) -- US President-elect Donald Trump is poised to pick two men with track records of harshly criticizing China for key posts in his administration, a sign ties between the superpowers may deteriorate further in coming years.
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Senator Marco Rubio — who has taken an aggressive stance on China’s emergence as an economic power — is set to become the first sitting secretary of state to have been sanctioned by Beijing, adding fresh turbulence to a tense relationship. Florida Representative Mike Waltz, who in 2021 declared America was in “a Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party,” is in line to become national security adviser.
Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations, has also been outspoken on China. She cited countering national security and economic threats posed by the “Chinese Communist government” as one of her priorities when serving as congresswoman for New York.
Trump’s emerging bench of high-profile China hawks gives some indication of the direction his next term will take, after the Republican campaigned on threats to unleash a 60% tariff on Chinese products. Economists say that would decimate trade between the world’s largest economies, dealing a blow to Beijing just as policymakers roll out a major stimulus package to put their nation’s wobbling economy on firmer footing.
“Trump is assembling a foreign policy team packed with tough-on-China politicians that will worry leaders in Beijing,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. “Xi Jinping may become more paranoid about US intentions and feel compelled to undertake stronger shows of force that heighten bilateral tensions.”
Unease over the future of China’s relationship with the US is already playing out in the market. Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong slumped on Tuesday, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index tumbling more than 3% to extend a 1.4% loss in the previous session.
“This underscores the high likelihood of Trump following through on his campaign pledge to implement punitive tariffs on China’s exports to the US,” Homin Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier, said of the reported appointments.
Trump wouldn’t be solely surrounded by hawks. Elon Musk’s presence in his inner circle could provide a rare moderating force among Trump’s universe of China advisers. The billionaire chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. has extensive business interests in the Asian nation — his company makes half its electric vehicles in China — and he’s routinely courted there by senior leaders, including longtime Xi loyalist Premier Li Qiang. The mercurial Trump could also change his mind about appointments at the last minute.
China’s top leader has already congratulated Trump on his White House comeback, in a sign the ruling Communist Party wants to keep things cordial. Xi is also expected to meet outgoing President Joe Biden in Peru this week at a summit of leaders from the Asia-Pacific region, providing an opportunity for Beijing to pass any message to the next administration.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said he had no comment on the flurry of reported appointments Tuesday at a regular press briefing in Beijing. “China’s policy on the US is consistent and clear,” he added.
‘Nightmare Come True’
Rubio is among a handful of US officials who China took the rare step of sanctioning twice in 2020, as tensions spiraled during the first Trump administration’s push to punish Beijing for its handling of Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Rubio sponsored a bill trying to prevent the import of goods made by China’s ethnic Uyghur minority, which Biden later signed into law.
Months after Rubio’s sanctions, outgoing secretary of state Michael Pompeo was slapped with similar curbs just as Biden was being inaugurated, in a move seen as a symbolic swipe.
A flurry of diplomatic engagements from senior Biden officials has since helped both sides manage differences, after an alleged Chinese spy balloon crossing the US sent ties into another tailspin early last year.
Trump’s decision to appoint Rubio — who ran against him in 2016 for the Republican nomination — could undermine that approach, if America’s top diplomat is barred from entering the Asian country. China’s former Defense Minister Li Shangfu faced a similar predicament, after being elevated to that job while sanctioned by America. Li refused to hold talks with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin until such measures were lifted, although American officials claimed the restrictions didn’t prevent such a sitdown.
Rubio’s elevation would be “a nightmare come true” for Beijing, according to Zhu Junwei, a former researcher in the People’s Liberation Army who is now director of American research at Grandview Institution in Beijing. “China has to consider what to do with the sanctions before being able to have any engagement with him,” she added.
‘Political Weirdos’
Both Rubio and Waltz have publicly expressed support for Trump bringing Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end, a move that would free Washington to focus more on China. They’ve also advocated for taking an even tougher line militarily and economically on America’s top rival.
In a 2022 speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, Rubio called China the “threat that will define this century.” The senator mapped out two scenarios: One where a “rising authoritarian power replaced a free society as the world’s most powerful country,” or an alternative where the US prospered.
The year before, China’s state-run Global Times newspaper published an opinion piece that branded Rubio one of Washington’s “political weirdos” for leading his country to “dangerous decisions” by stoking anxiety that America was facing an existential threat from China.
Waltz, a former Army Green Beret and combat veteran of Afghanistan, has been equally outspoken. Days before the US election, he wrote in the Economist newspaper that the US should end conflicts in Europe and the Middle East so it can confront “the greater threat” from China.
“America is not building armed forces to deny a Chinese attack on Taiwan,” he wrote in the article, co-authored with former Pentagon strategist Matthew Kroenig. “A new administration should increase defense spending and revitalize the defense-industrial base to make sure its armed forces are clearly capable of denying a Chinese attack on Taiwan.”
China sees Taiwan as a wayward province to be brought under its control someday, by force if required. Biden has repeatedly said Washington would come to Taipei’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, blurring America’s long-standing position of strategic ambiguity — a “confusing” policy that Waltz said had benefited Beijing, without elaborating.
“There were a great number of people in China who were hopeful Trump was a business-oriented pragmatist who would in some way be able to push the US-China relationship forward,” said Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of international relations at Shanghai’s East China Normal University.
“With these two people at the helm,” he added, “that seems very, very unlikely.”
--With assistance from Philip Glamann, Katia Dmitrieva and Charlotte Yang.
(Updates with Foreign Ministry response and other details throughout.)
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