Donald Trump’s fans and commentators reject the notion he has an overarching plan.
The 45th and 47th President of the United States does what he wants whenever the thought strikes him, they say, and they may be right – but Peter Hartcher can’t help but notice each brush stroke paints a picture increasingly resembling Xi Jinping’s China.
Talking to Samantha Selinger-Morris on The Morning Edition podcast, our international and political editor says it’s not China that is becoming more like the West, but America becoming more like China at a remarkable rate.
To listen to the full episode, click the player below or read on for an edited extract of the conversation.
Selinger-Morris: You’ve spoken to an expert who, the words he used was that there’s haunting parallels between the values shared by Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Now, we’ve heard a lot over the last few years, and in particular, over the last month about Trump cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, of course, but not perhaps as much about Xi. So what are these parallels?
Hartcher: The most strikingly obvious is that both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have the autocratic personality. That’s, I think, pretty self-evident. But also Geremie Barmé, the Australian sinologist whose wisdom I draw on in this column, points out the similarity between Donald Trump’s chant of “Fight, Fight, Fight” and Xi Jinping’s “Struggle, Struggle, Struggle”.
It’s interesting to note that Xi Jinping offers the Chinese people “happiness through struggle”. What I thought was interesting was to see whether there would be any way that we could measure the movement of the US becoming more like China.
America, led by Donald Trump (pictured here with Xi Jinping in 2019), is becoming more like China at a rapid rate.Credit: AP
I remembered that in 2013, early in Xi Jinping’s term, he issued a secret directive which later became public … it was just called Document No. 9, rather inoffensively, but it’s become known as the “seven taboos” or the “seven unmentionables”. And Chinese officials, academics, teachers were told you are not to even discuss these concepts.
