Opinion | Trump owes Americans the truth about the goals of his China policy – economic changes, containment or regime change

Of all the changes in American foreign policy US President Donald Trump’s administration has made, the most consequential is the adoption of a confrontational stance towards China. Replacing a decades-old policy of engagement, Trump’s approach has not only resulted in an economic cold war between the world’s two largest economies, it has also raised the spectre of armed conflict in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Within the first year of his presidency, Trump labelled China a strategic “competitor” and “rival power”. But it is not just Trump: for the US national security establishment and leading Republican members of Congress – as well as some Democrats – China represents the most serious long-term threat to America’s global pre-eminence and vital interests.

This should be clear from the fact that, despite Trump’s economic justifications – protection of US businesses’ intellectual property and correction of the huge bilateral trade imbalance – his tariffs are likely to do serious harm to the US economy, as they unravel an economic relationship built over four decades. In substance, if not in name, America’s China policy has become entirely adversarial.

This shift has alarmed some of America’s most experienced China scholars and former policymakers. In an open letter, nearly 100 of them – including both Republicans and Democrats, and many vocal critics of Chinese policies and behaviour – recently called on Trump not to treat China as an enemy.