Afrasianet - Laila Nicolas - The current international climate does not suggest that Trump's visit will produce major strategic agreements, or that China will put pressure on Iran in the interest of the Americans.
The White House announced that US President Donald Trump will visit China in mid-May, in the first visit by a US president to Beijing in nearly a decade.
During this interrupted period, US-China relations were tense, and tension reached an unprecedented level during the tenure of President Joe Biden, who did not visit China, and his administration took steps and actions that Beijing considered provocative, and concentrated in the vicinity of China and Taiwan in particular.
Trump's upcoming visit was preceded by the visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi to China, in a step that cannot be separated from the preparation for Trump's visit, in light of the war that broke out between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other.
This time synchronization reflects China's rising position as an insurmountable actor in managing the crises of the international system, especially those that affect energy, strategic corridors, and major balances.
The Iran war has shown the limits of U.S. military capability. China and Russia have also revealed how they can deal with a major military threat that has a surplus of military power by adopting hybrid warfare models based on the acquisition of modern technologies, satellites, and ballistic missiles, in addition to the acquisition of asymmetric warfare technologies such as low-cost combat and other tools of media power and information warfare.
In addition, Trump's visit to China comes in light of unprecedented changes imposed by Iran's war on the rules and arrangements of the existing international order, without itself establishing a new one.
The war against Iran has shown that the US military capability, despite its superiority, is no longer sufficient to produce long-term political stability, and that deterrence no longer works with classical mechanisms, but rather produces forms of inconclusive and time-open conflict.
It also revealed the possibility of US alliances fracturing in the event of a conflict The interests of the United States are aligned with those of its allies, and this is something that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago or even ten years ago.
In this context, and after China's growing rise on the international scene, the US visit to China is of particular importance because it is one of the parties that benefit the most from avoiding wars and the most capable of maneuvering between the conflicting parties, based on its position in the global economy and the dependence of a large number of countries, including Iran, on its trade and financial relations with it.
The current international climate does not suggest that Trump's visit will produce major strategic agreements, or that China will put pressure on Iran for the benefit of the Americans.
It is also not expected to make concessions like it made during Trump's first term, after the escalation of the trade war between the two countries.
The visit is likely to succeed in reopening direct channels of communication and reducing the risk of a direct clash between the United States and China due to the consequent global repercussions, in light of the increasing possibilities of miscalculation.
The importance of this visit also comes in cooling the atmosphere between the two countries, especially after the behavior of the previous US administration with China and its surroundings, which pushed both Russia and China into an existential alliance of necessity.
Finally, and perhaps the most important for Trump, is the extent to which China is able to play a role in containing the Iran war and bridging the gap between the two parties' approach, a role that China has played in the past between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Trump will deal with China not only as an economic partner of Iran, but as a party capable of practically influencing and pressuring Iran's behavior, and even providing international guarantees to Iran in the event that the American and Iranian parties reach an acceptable formula for resolving the conflict, which explains the inclusion of the Iranian file, albeit unannounced, in the background of Trump's visit.
On the other hand, in its dialogue with Trump, China will approach the issues raised within a new reality, which indicates the decline of America's global prestige after the Iran war, due to the inability of the Americans and Israelis to achieve the declared goals of the war against a country in the Global South, which has been living under siege and sanctions for decades.
Accordingly, we conclude that the Iran war may have contributed to the consolidation of three features of the current international order:
1. Dismantling the universal rules: There is no longer a single authority capable of imposing rules on everyone as before.
2. The growing role of major powers that are not militarily involved: such as China, whose influence is due to its position and ability to mediate, not to its involvement in the war (which is new in international relations that have always given the winners the ability to shape the rules of the new order).
3. The logic of temporary settlements advances: Trump, because of his inability to achieve a victory in the war, is trying to produce a temporary partial calm to freeze the conflict rather than resolve it, knowing that the results are not guaranteed and may explode again at any time.
