--- title: Donald Trump’s Top Priority Must Be a Strong China Strategy description: As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January, one challenge looms large: China. canonical: https://time.com/4600147/donald-trump-china-policy/ author: James Stavridis article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-14T18:55:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:14.755Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Donald Trump’s Top Priority Must Be a Strong China Strategy og:description: Here are the key elements og:url: https://time.com/4600147/donald-trump-china-policy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt924173bb2820d47b/6988b2f286f68e71906e2f1f/trump11.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4791 og:image:height: 2695 og:image:alt: Republican presidential-elect Donald Trump USA Thank You Tour 2016 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump’s Top Priority Must Be a Strong China Strategy twitter:description: Here are the key elements twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt924173bb2820d47b/6988b2f286f68e71906e2f1f/trump11.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump’s Top Priority Must Be a Strong China Strategy > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump [Watch (HLS stream): TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Q0tBuF3M.m3u8) (4:12)  _Published 2016-12-07. The 2016 Person of the Year is Donald Trump, the President of the divided states of America._ by [James Stavridis](https://time.com/author/james-stavridis/) ## James Stavridis Dec 14, 2016 6:55 PM UTC  Donald Trump talks to members of the media at The Ohio State Universtiy in Columbus, OH on Dec. 08, 2016. Donald Trump talks to members of the media at The Ohio State Universtiy in Columbus, OH on Dec. 08, 2016. Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post/Getty Images by [James Stavridis](https://time.com/author/james-stavridis/) ## James Stavridis Dec 14, 2016 6:55 PM UTC As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January, one challenge looms large: China and its expanding role in the vital Asia-Pacific region. The incoming Administration will need to develop a long-term Pacific strategy—which ultimately [eluded President Obama’s team](http://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/US-election/James-Stavridis-Requiem-for-the-Pacific-pivot). Creating a long-term policy toward China will be difficult: Trump’s recent questioning of the venerable “one China” policy and China’s vigorous reaction illustrates the hypersensitivity in Beijing. There is certainly leeway to change and clarify policy, but rocking the boat without a strategic plan—as Trump did by taking a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen—has already resulted in ominous pronouncements by China. What are the key elements of such a strategy? A durable China policy would have to reconcile two key elements: security and trade. Security is foundational to protecting our interests, reassuring our allies and maintaining the open commons and international norms upon which global commerce depends. Trade is the engine of global prosperity and stability. Both are challenged by China’s desire to dominate the region and effectively construct a “Great Wall of Sand” around its territorial claims in the region—especially in the flashpoint of the South China Sea, through which [30% of the world’s maritime trade](http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/NDAA%20A-P%5FMaritime%5FSecuritY%5FStrategy-08142015-1300-FINALFORMAT.PDF) passes annually. We must start by recognizing that building security is a team sport. It is crucial for the U.S. to maintain and strengthen our alliances and security partnerships throughout the region—Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines are treaty allies. India, Malaysia, Vietnam and others are friends. Our Pacific allies are watching China’s rise and increased assertiveness with uncertainty, just as we are. Our engagement—whether by military exercises, arms sales or mere presence—is critical to reassuring them. A second crucial element of our strategy should be in the cyber world. We have seen many instances of alleged aggressive Chinese cyber behavior, including stealing commercial and military technology, breaking into vital U.S. databases and manipulating financial information. We need to work with China to establish mutually acceptable behavior in the cyber realm as part of our strategy. Third, we need a robust trade component. Trade and diplomacy—not force—are the best ways to encourage other countries to comply with international norms. Well over half of all U.S. [exports](https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2012/june/us-tpp-increasing-american-exports-supporting-american-jobs), including close to three-quarters of our agricultural exports, go to the region—most by freely transiting the ocean. Trump may be determined to keep the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but economic engagement with Pacific economies—including China—is crucial. We should consider whether to renegotiate the TPP or begin the laborious process of finding a substitute. Robust trade with China may be the key to encouraging cooperation on the Law of the Sea, open and peaceful activity in the cyber and space domains, and restraint of rogue actors from North Korea to [Malaccan pirates](http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/piracy-in-the-malacca-strait-can-asean-respond/). Fourth, we should support international treaties and organizations. The U.S. must continue to calmly but firmly reinforce international rules of innocent passage, freedom of navigation and the lawful extent of national waters in the South China Sea and other Pacific-area choke points. The U.S. should also finally ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea: we already abide by it, and we rely on it to encourage China (already a signatory) to do the same. Setting U.S. policy in the Pacific on a sustainable course will require immediate action. Trump and his team will have to start with the basics—reassuring allies, maintaining open global commons, improving trade relationships and calming the cyber sphere—and build from there. Most important, the U.S.-China relationship must be prevented from becoming a “Thucydides trap” in which a rising power and an established one view each other with such suspicion that conflict appears inevitable. Inflammatory or chaotic language and actions will not help. U.S. presence across the Pacific is not new or threatening, and the new Administration should not retreat or deviate from long-standing and clearly stated goals of maintaining open sea lanes and upholding global standards of conduct. A thoughtfully constructed and methodically executed strategy in the face of a rising China must be a first order of business for the new Administration. ## Transcript MUSIC ] Every year we choose the Person of the Year who is the individual who has had the most influence on events for better or worse. The Tod argue that anyone had no influence that Donald Trump over the events of this year. [ MUSIC ] I didn't get Beyonce and Jay Z and Goose Bernstein to get crowds, I had just me. And ideas that people wanted to hear. But there is a profound argument about whether his influence was for the better or for the worse. And that really is the challenge that faces the country came through this election season more divided conspicuously publicly than at any time through any election cycle that most of us Can remember. [ MUSIC ] We're gonna have a lot of jobs put back. I think we're gonna have a lot of fuel companies leaving our country. I believed we will be successful with defeating ISIS or bringing them down to a level where it's almost the same thing. And I hope I'm judged from the time of the election as opposed to from January 20th because the stock market has had a tremendous bounce and people are seeing very good things for business in this country. [ MUSIC ] One of the things that was remarkable in going to see him, to interview him, is to be in that Penthouse which is the most austiontacious, imaginable marble and mirrors, and gold. And see him in the suit and the diamond cuff links. There is a kind of distance that repressed him about, of how is it that the billionaire is the tribune of the working man? He said, he thought that it had to do With that he wasn't a phony, that there have certainly been wealthy politicians before. Doing some cases would bend over backwards to make themselves appear like the common man, or do anything that they could, eating the corn dog at the Iowa State Fair, wearing a flannel shirt in New Hampshire. I think he had a very strong instinct that his wealth and that flamboyant display of his wealth Was not a liability that it was actually an asset. [ MUSIC ] Donal Trump is very comfortable sitting down and answering questions, although he very frequently does not remotely answer the question that you asked. In one sense it feels very undisciplined and in another sense maybe it's very disciplined in that He knows what he will and will not talk about and is unabashed in completely changing the subject. Do you feel changed by your election, and how you do think, if I play this tape back in four or eight years, the office will have changed here? Well, it's a It's a very humbling experience, I can tell you, as somebody that loves this country, it's a very large country, but it's also an even more powerful country than the numbers, because, if you look at China, and India, and you have others with more people, but, when you look at what we do in this country, it's The most incredible place on earth. [ MUSIC ] A lot of people think that Person of the Year just because the nature of the name is an honor. And certainly there have been years where we have recognized people's whose influence has been altogether, unassailably worthy. Normally, that's not the case. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with so much of what Donald Trump said and are very apprehensive about what his presidency means for them and for the country. I think I would challenge them to suggest that someone else this year had more influence than a way greater Surprise than what he did in 2016. 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