Columnist and China hawk Gordon Chang said President Trump did not achieve much during his trip to China, in an interview with Forbes, saying it made the U.S. look weak for the president not to walk out when Xi Jinping mentioned the “Thucydides Trap” at the welcoming ceremony. “I think Trump just should have stopped the summit right there and said: If Xi Jinping, if you can’t respect me, if you can’t do this, then there’s no point in talking,” Chang said. “Xi Jinping needs the U.S. far more than we need him.” “This is only one round of a 15-round match, which won’t be decided until September 24, when Xi Jinping is scheduled to come to Washington,” he said. “But you have to look at this and say round one goes to China.” “We have seen Trump push the Chinese around this year. You start in January 3 with Venezuela, you see what’s happening in Cuba right now, and of course, we all know what’s going on in Iran.” “Trump is taking Chinese proxies off the board, and Xi Jinping is helpless,” Chang said. “So Xi Jinping’s arrogance in the summit, I think, is a reflection of frustration and a need to show that he is as strong as Trump, but he’s not.” He suggested, “I think that essentially Trump let him get away with it, but Trump is going to bring down the hammer.”

GORDON CHANG: President Trump gets some credit for this summit. I don’t think he should have gone, but he does get some credit, and that is: almost all summits are canned. In other words, everything has been decided before the foreign leader arrives on Chinese soil. This one has not been the case. There were substantive discussions going on, and Trump has been trying to accommodate China to reach some agreements with China, some way of going forward. Now, I think that’s futile for a lot of reasons. I think that we shouldn’t be trying to do that right now for a lot of reasons, but give the guy credit for trying it. The reason why I feel we shouldn’t go down this road is because we’ve gone down this road for decades, and it’s produced some pretty bad results for the United States. And Xi Jinping is much more aggressive, as we could hear from those comments on Thursday, where he just dissed the U.S. So I think Trump just should have stopped the summit right there and said, If Xi Jinping, if you can’t respect me, if you can’t do this, then there’s no point in talking. I think that would have produced a much better result because Xi Jinping needs the U.S. far more than we need him. HOST: Sounds like you’re saying that President Xi felt emboldened to criticize President Trump and the United States at this summit. I’m curious because both leaders clearly wanted to radiate strength, not only to their home countries, but to the entire world as well. Who do you think came out as winners and losers here? CHANG: Well, this is only one round of a 15-round match, which won’t be decided until September 24, when Xi Jinping is scheduled to come to Washington. But you have to look at this and say round one goes to China because Xi Jinping made those comments and Trump did not respond appropriately. So I’m worried about that. Now, having said that, I don’t think round one means that much ultimately because Trump is Trump. He will get his way. We have seen Trump push the Chinese around this year. You start in January 3 with Venezuela, you see what’s happening in Cuba right now, and of course, we all know what’s going on in Iran. Trump is taking Chinese proxies off the board, and Xi Jinping is helpless, essentially. So Xi Jinping’s arrogance in the summit, I think, is a reflection of frustration and a need to show that he is as strong as Trump, but he’s not. I think that essentially Trump let him get away with it, but Trump is going to bring down the hammer. I’m confident about that. HOST: I know that you said the next round will be in September, when President Xi comes to America for that summit with President Trump. What are you looking out for between now and then throughout the summer? Are you looking to see if what was discussed here actually comes to fruition, if these trade deals actually get inked, if China helps in any way with Iran? What specifically are you looking out for next? CHANG: It’s all of the above because Trump has created some markers for himself by saying this is what the Chinese have agreed to. There is a pretty distressing pattern in summits between China and the United States, where we put out our version of what happened and the Chinese put out their version, and oftentimes the two versions can’t be reconciled or are very different. Right now, we don’t even have versions. So we’re just going to have to wait and see. As I said, Trump gets credit for coming in and rolling the dice. It’s only in the weeks and months ahead that we are going to see what, if anything, happened.

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