David Murrin, author of Breaking the Code of History –
Donald Trump, in a recent tweet, really set the cat amongst the pigeons!
“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China,”
Mr Trump tweeted.
Recognizing the often confusing nature of Trump’s preferred mode of communication – the Tweet – does Trump really want to withdraw American companies from China? To answer this question, we need to look at both the American and the Chinese perspective on the escalating strategic competition.
From the Chinese perspective, from the death of Mao in 1976 to the inauguration of President XI in 2012, China followed Deng’s strategy, which was to hide one’s brightness and bide one’s time whilst expanding China’s national power with the primary objective of rejuvenating China.