In 1971, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger faked an illness during his visit to Pakistan and flew undercover to Beijing. His secret mission laid the foundation for President Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to China the following year, famously remembered as “Kissinger’s rapprochement”. The US strategy in the early 1970s was to gain more leverage over its Enemy Number One at the time — the Soviet Union — by creating a rift between the two communist powers.
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Kissinger’s move was rooted in realpolitik rather than ideology. He and Nixon believed that, given the Sino-Soviet divisions prevailing at the time, improving Washington’s relations with Beijing would put pressure on Moscow to seek better ties. Fast forward 50 years — Russia is the weak link in this tumultuous triangle, and China is the new Enemy Number One for the US.
Is Donald Trump’s recent outreach to Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine reminiscent of the 1972 rapprochement? The US president has, in a series of lightning-fast announcements, wreaked fear and havoc within the existing global order as officials from Washington and Moscow met in Riyadh to discuss a peace deal in the absence of Ukraine and Europe. Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator”, a contrast to his predecessor Joe Biden’s characterisation of Putin as a “murderous dictator”.
The transatlantic alliance, on the other hand, is crumbling. European leaders fear a repeat of 1938, when France and Britain sold out Czechoslovakia to appease Nazi Germany, culminating in Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Led by French President Macron, they convened an emergency meeting recently to plan for their security in the future should the US withdraw support from Ukraine, as its arms production is not advancing fast enough to match American supplies. While the official reaction from Beijing has been that it is pleased to see Moscow and Washington resuming dialogue, China could not have asked for a more divided West.
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What, then, is Trump’s ultimate goal in mending ties with Russia while undermining long-standing military alliances in Europe? It would be too simplistic to attribute the actions to his affinity for Putin or to a vendetta against Zelenskyy for his impeachment when the US president during his first term asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Biden’s son for re-election purposes. Instead, it seems that Trump believes he can work with the Kremlin to isolate China and curb its expanding global influence. No nation would welcome a weakening of China-Russia ties more than India, which sees Beijing as an adversary on border and trade issues and Moscow as a reliable partner on defence and trade.
China and Russia have indeed forged deep economic and strategic links — the so-called “no-limits” ties — and are united in their efforts to diminish the dominance of the US dollar and challenge the post-World War II international order led by Washington. What Trump seems to overlook, however, is that courting Putin does not force Xi Jinping into concessions; rather, it provides China an opening to expand its influence. Europe, particularly in post-war Ukraine’s reconstruction, could become a new arena for Beijing’s ambitions. Notably, it was China that supported Russia during heavy economic sanctions and helped it devastate Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US’s withdrawal from institutions like the World Health Organisation and the UN Human Rights Council has created further vacuums for Beijing to fill, both financially and diplomatically, while Trump’s plan for Palestine involving the permanent displacement of millions of Gazans — denounced by China — offers yet another opportunity for Beijing to strengthen its presence in West Asia.
Trump may seek to realign global focus on China, but the way he plans to go about it — alienating allies and pursuing a lopsided peace in Ukraine — risks backfiring. Unlike Kissinger’s strategic success, which established formal US-China ties in 1979 and forced the Soviet Union to contend with two rivals instead of one, Washington’s current approach could inadvertently bolster Beijing’s global position rather than contain it.
saptarshi.basak@expressindia.com
