Trump’s march gives China a fillip

Donald Trump is almost as obsessed with China as he is with building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the United States presidential race scatters references to the country almost compulsively throughout his speeches, accusing it of cheating and tricking America, while also insisting he really “loves” China.

Strange as it may seem, the affection appears to be mutual. Mr Trump was viewed favourably by just over half of those polled last month by Global Times, the nationalist, and usually anti-American, government newspaper. Compare that with his own country, where just one-third of those asked in a Washington Post-ABC News poll last week viewed him favourably.

So, given the choice, would authoritarian China be more likely than the Land of the Free to elect Mr Trump? The truth is — and this will probably be a little distressing to the vainglorious reality TV star — the vast majority of Chinese people have never even heard of him.

To get a sense of how insignificant Mr Trump is, just consider how few ordinary Americans could name today’s Chinese leaders.

Add to that the fact the media is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist party, with Western websites such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube kept at bay by the Great Firewall censorship regime.

Even the founder of the Trump toilet company — a manufacturer in southern China that has made Trump-branded luxury commodes under the slogan “triple care, double enjoyment” for more than a decade — claims never to have heard of the candidate until last year.

On the rare occasions when China’s propaganda organs do mention Mr Trump, it is usually to use his unexpected political rise as an example of all that is wrong with Western democracy.

Until this week — when Mr Lou Jiwei, China’s outspoken Finance Minister, described him as an “irrational type” — Beijing had studiously avoided making any public comments about Mr Trump or his flamboyant candidacy. Mr Lou went on to say, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, that the US “wouldn’t be entitled to world leadership”, if it followed Mr Trump’s proposed trade policies towards China.

Most people with even basic economic competence would probably agree with that statement. Mr Trump’s assertion that China manipulates the value of its currency is factually correct. But for the past decade, this manipulation has been largely at Washington’s urging and has involved appreciation of the yuan against all other leading currencies.

That is the opposite of the devaluation Mr Trump alleges. In fact, contrary to his accusations, Beijing has spent hundreds of billions of foreign exchange reserves in the past year trying to stop the depreciation of its currency.

His claims about China waging an economic war on the US and intentionally stealing millions of jobs are just plain silly, especially in light of how much American consumers have benefited from cheap Chinese products and how US companies have profited from China’s economic boom.

He has also clearly never used the overstretched Chinese transport infrastructure, which he compares so favourably to that of the US. Presidential candidates in the US are determined by a complex state-by-state process for electing delegates to party conventions.

Mr Trump reacted to Mr Lou’s censure with customary glee, holding it up as a badge of honour. But the reality is that the Chinese Communist Party would probably rather see Mr Trump in the White House than any other candidate — especially if the alternative is Mrs Hillary Clinton, whom the leadership in Beijing has despised for decades because of her outspoken criticism of their human rights record.

In fact, since Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit, China’s leaders have always preferred Republican presidents as they are seen as more predictable and pragmatic than the slippery Democrats.

Mr Trump’s open talk of removing the US nuclear and security umbrella from allies including Japan, Taiwan and South Korea does worry some in Beijing because of the likelihood this would spark a nuclear arms race in the region.

But they also see his isolationism and vocal preference for “making deals” as a rare opportunity to roll back the lattice of US security agreements in place since the Second World War, which they see as Washington’s containment of their natural ambition for dominance in the region.

Even if, as it looks increasingly likely, Mr Trump fails to be elected leader of the free world, Trumpist isolationism has had an impact on Washington’s strategic thinking. Thanks to his influence, the chances of a partial American retreat in the region have already increased, to Beijing’s great advantage. FINANCIAL TIMES