“Ahead of APEC, Trump caught in a dilemma over countering China while preserving the thaw in ties with Beijing”

[Financial News] The Washington Post (WP), a U.S. daily, reported on the 11th (local time) that the affair scandal involving NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has also brought contradictions in U.S. President Donald Trump’s China policy into focus.
President Trump has consistently warned that China is catching up in advanced technology.
As fears spread that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy humanity, along with calls to regulate AI, Trump notably cited China’s progress as a reason to oppose government regulation.

Contrary to this stance, President Trump approved exports of NVIDIA’s advanced chips to China, despite opposition from China hawks within his administration.
Even as a scandal over CEO Huang’s affair with a woman suspected of being a spy for Chinese intelligence agencies threatens to become a national security issue, President Trump appears to be actively defending Huang.
According to U.S. media reports, President Trump received a report that the woman having an affair with CEO Huang was suspected of being a Chinese spy in late autumn last year and again this May, aboard the presidential plane as he headed to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He ignored the report.
Instead, at a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, he invited CEO Huang to board the presidential plane and included him on the list of business leaders accompanying him on his trip to China.
At a White House briefing on the 9th, when asked when he had first been informed of CEO Huang’s affair, President Trump avoided giving a specific answer and said, “Of course, it didn’t have much of an impact on me.”
WP said, “President Trump’s muted response highlights the conflicting priorities that have shaped his China policy,” adding, “His warnings about China’s technological ambitions clash with his close relationships with U.S. tech company CEOs and his desire to preserve a fragile diplomatic thaw with President Xi.”

In China, analysts are suggesting that the scandal could lead to a repeat of the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident, which triggered a deterioration in U.S.-China relations, ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China. Trump and Xi are due to meet there again two months after their summit in Washington, D.C., last September.
China’s state-run Global Times pointed to similarities between the current scandal and the spy balloon incident, asking on the 9th, “Given the hard-won easing of tensions between China and the U.S., is someone behind the scenes pushing a particular agenda and stoking confrontation?”
However, President Trump does not appear to want the scandal to cool U.S.-China relations.
At a briefing on the 9th, he was asked whether he would raise the issue with Xi at the APEC summit and replied, “I don’t think so.” President Trump also said he would take CEO Huang with him on his trip to the APEC summit.
This, too, appears to illustrate President Trump’s dilemma over his China policy.

Victor Cha, a professor of political science specializing in China at the University of California, San Diego, said, “Another president might have reacted strongly to this scandal, but President Trump’s attitude is along the lines of, ‘If they do that to us, we do the same to them.’” He added, “Trump would not want to undermine the gains made at the two U.S.-China summits.”
President Trump’s view of China is nothing new. In September, when told that Iran had used Chinese satellite imagery to strike a U.S. military base in Jordan, he said, “If people say China is spying on us, I say they’re right, but we spy on them too.”
WP noted that President Trump continues to support CEO Huang while signaling that he will not allow the scandal to disrupt the APEC summit or Xi’s plans to attend the G20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December.
[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, international affairs correspondent Reporter