President Donald Trump’s upending of US foreign policy has alarmed allies and nations in need. His administration has frozen foreign aid, threatened to take control of other countries’ sovereign territory, exited key international bodies and alienated Europe with an embrace of Russia.
But the head-spinning set of moves, that together signal a retreat from leadership of a liberal order to “America First,” is playing right into the messaging of the US’ biggest rival.
In this time of “transformation and turbulence,” China has a vision for a “safer world,” its top diplomat Wang Yi told G20 counterparts last week as he reiterated Beijing’s pitch for “a new path to security” without alliances, “zero-sum” competition and “bloc confrontation.”
That vision – coded language for reshaping a world order China sees as unfairly dominated by the West – has been a cornerstone of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s push to step up as an alternative global leader to the US.
And the drive has the potential to take on new relevance, observers say, as Beijing eyes the opportunities to advance its influence in the wake of Trump’s US foreign policy upset.
Trump’s shake-up was obvious even in the room of foreign ministers from the world’s largest economies where Wang, China’s most seasoned diplomat, spoke in South Africa last week.
The absence of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meant no high-ranking US diplomat was there to present an American counterpoint to a gathering of countries that make up 80% of the global population and three-quarters of international trade.
On the surface, this shift has the potential to accelerate China’s ascent as a global power, potentially granting the world’s second-largest economy space to win more allies, boost its global leadership and shift global norms and rules – such as those on human rights or security – in its favor.
But countries from Europe to Asia are well aware of the wide gap between Beijing’s benign rhetoric and its behavior as it flouts a major international ruling to harass Philippine vessels in the South China Sea or intimidates Taiwan – the self-ruling democracy Bejing claims.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled it wants to shift attention from other global conflicts to focus on its rivalry with China. And Beijing will face that and potential fresh US tariffs on its goods as it tries to revive a weak economy – limiting how much it can pour into expanding global influence.
But even still, there are signs that China may see potential for those headwinds to just be some turbulence in a rise made easier by Trump’s policies.
“Trump 2.0 era will undoubtedly weaken the US’ leadership in international affairs,” an analysis published this month on the website of Shanghai-based think tank Fudan Development Institute said.
“As other countries, particularly the European Union and China, actively respond, the power vacuum left by the US withdrawal may be filled by them … With the US no longer able to dominate global issues as it once did, a new global governance structure may emerge,” it said.
Soft power vacuum
As Trump dismantles the US foreign aid sector – freezing funding to global education, health and development programs – some English-language arms of Chinese state media released scathing critiques of such assistance.
Foreign aid is “viewed by the US as a tool to maintain its hegemonic position and engage in geopolitical maneuvering,” nationalist tabloid the Global Times said in an article on USAID, an agency Beijing has long seen as a thorn in its side, accusing of sparking democratic “color revolutions” and indoctrinating US proxies across the world. USAID, which was founded during the Cold War, has long played a key role in advancing American soft power and democratic ideals.
Beijing, however, wasn’t looking at Washington’s aid freeze as an opportunity because – unlike the US – China treats “other nations with sincerity, fairness, and selflessness,” an editorial by the state-run outlet claimed.
There has been some indication China will take targeted steps to ramp up its support in regions it sees as strategically important in the wake of the US freeze – a move that would align with what experts have seen as a soft-power struggle between the two countries in recent decades.
In Cambodia, for example, Beijing released $4.4 million for demining operations, as US-backed landmine removal programs were halted in eight provinces, the Associated Press reported, citing the Cambodian Mine Action Center.
Overall, however, experts say there’s little chance that Beijing would be able or willing to step up to fill the US aid void.
China is a huge player in global development, funneling more than a trillion dollars into overseas projects between 2000 and 2021. But unlike the US, data show the vast majority of Beijing’s development spending is not direct aid, but loans and other financing.
And economic belt-tightening has seen Beijing move away from big-ticket commitments, like building railroads and power plants under Xi’s signature Belt and Road overseas infrastructure drive, paring back to more modest projects in recent years.
“Trump is giving China some opportunity – but China might not be able to pick up this US gift,” said Shanghai-based foreign affairs analyst Shen Dingli. “Due to our gloomy economy and the (downsized) version of Belt and Road … we have less money to buy loyalty.”
Even still, China may look to capitalize on countries’ uncertainty about the US to expand its trade and security ties, as well as access to critical minerals, observers say. And countries may take uncertainty in US relations – from the aid freeze to Trump’s tariff threats – into calculations for dealing with the world’s two largest economies.
“Beijing can send the message to the rest of the world … that the US is fundamentally going to be unreliable,” said Manoj Kewalramani, who heads Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution research center in the Indian city of Bengaluru. “Why would you want to pick a fight with Beijing now?”
There are already signs of concern from some parts about Beijing’s potential gains from a Trump-era pullback of US assistance.
In an open letter to Trump posted on social platform X, Nepalese lawmaker Rajendra Bajgain last week warned that a “vacuum created by reduced American involvement will inevitably be filled by other powers that do not share the values of democracy and free enterprise.”
Two major US-funded infrastructure projects as well as other initiatives in Nepal have been put on hold following the US aid freeze, Reuters reported.
China’s aid “aligns with the needs of recipient countries for socio-economic development and the improvement of people’s livelihoods,” it said.
‘Checked and balanced’
But even as some of Trump’s moves so far have created potential openings for Beijing, there’s also the hanging question of how his administration may ultimately calibrate its aid and foreign policy – and its rivalry with China.
When asked this month if the foreign aid shake-up was giving China and Russia an opportunity to expand their influence, national security adviser Mike Waltz told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “all too often these missions and these programs, number one, are not in line with strategic US interests like pushing back on China.”
And speaking to European counterparts earlier this month, US defense chief Pete Hegseth warned that the US could no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Instead, the US is “prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific,” he said.
There have also been signs of Trump’s brash diplomacy working against Beijing’s benefit.
Panama, the first country in Latin America to sign onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative, announced it would pull out of the scheme after Trump repeatedly threatened to “take back” the Panama Canal, falsely claiming Panama had ceded its operations to China.
And in Europe, even as Trump officials lambasted European and NATO counterparts earlier this month and warmed to Russia, US allies there appeared galvanized, rather than dissuaded, to bolster NATO with more spending. That pivot will also mean Beijing is watching closely whether Washington is able to peel away its close ally Moscow, as the White House has signaled it may hope to do.
Even still, Beijing will likely see the time as right to put more focus on repairing strained relations with Europe – a potential opening that could widen if Trump slaps tariffs on European goods.
Trump has also so far not shaken US alliances in Asia, as Beijing may have hoped. And it’s not clear that “America First” will leave a security void in Asia or weaken the US alliance system there.
The US president held seemingly successful meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi this month, and signaled support for the Pacific-focused AUKUS alliance of Canberra, London and Washington.
And uncertainty or future demands from Trump could also strengthen arsenals and partnerships in the region. On Monday, US allies the Philippines and Japan agreed to further deepen their defense collaborations.
Beijing, so far, has been seen as continuing to probe the limits of its own military muscle-flexing in the region, in recent days conducting what New Zealand said were unprecedented live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea.
On Wednesday, Taiwan accused China of setting up a zone for “live-fire training” without advance notice a day after the island’s coast guard detained a Chinese-crewed cargo ship suspected of cutting an undersea cable in the Taiwan Strait.
But Beijing will be carefully watching how Trump’s policies and his allies’ response to them weigh on its core ambitions to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea – and take control of the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan.
“As long as the war in Europe would be put to an end, China’s freedom of action in our part of the world might be more seriously checked and balanced,” said Shen in Shanghai.
“China must be watching, calculating how it should adjust its new approach to this fast-moving situation,” he said.
