Toh Han Shih
White House photo
US President Donald Trump has spread uncertainty among diplomats and analysts in a November 1 tweet in which he referred to his October 30 APEC meeting with President Xi Jinping of China as a “G2” event, thus conferring great-power status on Beijing in the face of years of attempts by Washington to downplay the country’s rising standing.
“Even if nobody believes that the G2 order is emerging by agreement, Beijing must be pleased to be seen as an equal peer,” tweeted Sari Arho Havren, a China analyst, on October 31.
The fact that Trump and his War Secretary repeatedly mentioned G2 suggests Trump is taking seriously this concept of grouping the world’s two most powerful countries, a notion first mooted by US economist C. Fred Bergsten in 2005. G2 talk occurred during the 2008 financial crisis, when US and European policymakers called on Beijing to shoulder greater responsibility for rescuing the global economy, according to an article in The Diplomat on October 31. The concept of G2 has been shelved since then, as relations between the US and China deteriorated.
Trump’s hyperbole over the summit meeting with President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, which he rated as “12 out of 10” in importance, also led him to describe it as likely to “lead to everlasting peace and success.”
Others greeted with skepticism the proclamation of “everlasting peace” with the superpower he called a “strategic competitor” during his first presidency. The accord seems more of a “temporary truce” between the world’s two largest economies, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told Singapore media on November 1.
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