January 2017

Each weekday morning, I cross D.C.’s National Mall and pass a sign on Constitution Avenue bearing an epigram by the U.S. architect Daniel Burnham: Make No Little Plans. And every morning, these words make me think not of Burnham’s 20th century United States, but of 21st century China. That is now where staggering plans are made and funded. Some Chinese plans will improve lives around the world, while others may erode the liberal international order the United States has led since 1945.

Over the past year, Donald Trump has vowed to “utterly destroy” ISIS, considered lifting sanctions on Russia, promised to cancel the Paris climate agreement and “dismantle” the Iran nuclear deal. But many of his most inflammatory statements are directed at China. He has promised to label China as a “currency manipulator,” suggested he will dispense with the “one China policy,” and threatened to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports. His nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has said China should be barred from accessing the islands it built in the South China Sea. Trump leases office space to the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and his son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner is in talks with Chinese insurance conglomerate Anbang.