Since the outset of the U.S.-China trade war, critics have castigated the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump for its capricious approach to relations with Beijing. They have found fault in particular with Trump’s flip-flopping on sanctioning ZTE, banning U.S. companies from selling to Huawei and then reversing course, and refusing to censure China for its abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong in order to preserve trade negotiations.
Recently, however, Trump’s China doctrine has attracted praise for its “realism.” In a recent Foreign Policy article, the Hoover Institution’s Michael Auslin argued that the Trump administration’s disorganized and seemingly contradictory approach to China is actually “a fairly measured realist policy” that is “based on reciprocity.” While Auslin acknowledged that, for the most part, reciprocity—loosely defined as “a measured balance toward Beijing’s actions” to create a “level playing field”—has yet to be fully road-tested, he nevertheless hails it as “a prudent attempt to make policy fit real conditions.”
