The pivot to China

Add to this the progressive interpolation of OBOR with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. The EEU is fully institutionalized, complete with bureaucratic layers, while OBOR is still a loose experiment in progress. As Xi and Vladimir Putin have stressed, OBOR and EEU are ultimately complementary -- and that adds an extra dimension to the Russia-China strategic partnership.

Beijing's advance across Central Asia is essentially geoeconomic, as an infrastructure provider; Moscow for its part is not paranoid that Beijing harbors political hegemonic designs. The light at the end of the (high-speed rail) tunnel is always Eurasia integration, with regional powers Iran and eventually Turkey also on board for the long haul.

Klaus Baader, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, recently told Bloomberg: "How many times did Trump say he would label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office? It was pure rhetoric ... Rhetoric that cannot be implemented."

That does not mean that after the Trump-Xi call all the rhetoric will vanish. The folks in Trump's internal audience/electoral base have eagerly entertained the desire -- or illusion -- that they deserve a better distribution of wealth since they're right at the heart of the "indispensable nation"; and that this may happen mostly at the expense of a China that has profited immensely from globalization. That's what Trump's rhetoric has been emphasizing.

For its part, China is embarking on a much more ambitious path -- albeit one fraught with danger. It needs to stop depending so much on exports to the US. It must also continue to invest in its internal market, transferring wealth and opportunities from the eastern seaboard to central provinces and the west. But most of all, Beijing is focused on paving the way for a new geoeconomic Pax Sinica down the road.

Vast sectors of the US deep state though remain committed to the pivot to China -- as in, its outright containment. Trump may have already understood that a trade war is a lose-lose proposition. In the absence of an Asian economic version of NATO (the dead-in-the water Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal), the emphasis will be on "vigilant" allies/semi-disguised vassals such as Japan, South Korea and Australia (after "that" phone call to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Canberra will be a tough proposition).

In a nutshell: the pivot to Asia will survive in some shape or form. Notice the set of "recommendations" to the president by a task force on US-China policy organized by the Asia Society and the University of California San Diego.

Nestled among platitudes on human rights and the need to "reaffirm US commitments," there's the same misleading emphasis on "freedom of navigation" -- which China reads as US naval hegemony meant as a law of nature -- and the proverbial need to "maintain an active US naval and air presence" to "respond resolutely to China's use of force against the United States or its treaty allies." (Note the premise is always Chinese aggression.)

Wishful thinking -- already debunked by reality -- is also the norm, as in "changes are needed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership to gain bipartisan ratification in Congress."

This is all too predictable. Kurt Campbell, at the moment part of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, among other roles, is a key member of the task force. Campbell was the conceptualizer of the pivot to Asia, which he sold to Hillary Clinton who then sold it to Obama. For the Pentagon, the categorical imperative remains the same: China must not be allowed in any circumstances to contest US "access" or escape from its geostrategic containment in the South and East China Seas.

Add the chilling message delivered by former CIA director James Woolsey, who until recently was advising Trump on national security: "The US sees itself as the holder of the balance of power in Asia and is likely to remain determined to protect its allies against Chinese overreach." Crude translation: it's our way or the highway (rather, bottom of the ocean).

So welcome to the overall guidelines of Trump's China pivot. Dialectic hostility, anyone?

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