Trump Delayed Pence’s Tiananmen Square Speech in Hopes of Landing Xi Meeting
Vice President Mike Pence was set to deliver a speech criticizing China’s human rights record on June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre -- until Donald Trump stepped in.
The president delayed the speech to avoid upsetting Beijing ahead of a potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 meeting in Japan at the end of this month, according to several people familiar with the matter. Trump also put off U.S. sanctions on Chinese surveillance companies that Pence planned to preview in his remarks.
The speech was tentatively rescheduled for June 24, just days before the Osaka meetings. But with Beijing signaling that Xi might not agree to a meeting, there is now debate within the administration about when Pence should deliver the speech and how hard he should be on the Chinese.
The episode illustrates the tightrope Trump is attempting to walk with China and Xi. He has portrayed the country as the greatest threat to U.S. military and economic hegemony, embarking on a trade war to wrestle concessions from Beijing following decades of what American lawmakers in both parties call unfair, deceptive and outright illegal trade practices.
But he also has repeatedly hailed what he says is a close personal relationship with Xi, and he is acutely aware of the potential economic and political costs, ahead of his 2020 re-election, if he can’t cut a deal with the Chinese leader.
Trump said Friday that “it doesn’t matter” if he gets a meeting with Xi at the G-20.
“If he shows up, good,” Trump told Fox News. “If he doesn’t -- in the meantime, we’re taking in billions of dollars a month. Eventually, they’re going to make a deal, because they’re going to have to. Look, they’re paying hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Provocative Speech
A spokesman for the Wilson Center in Washington, Ryan McKenna, said Pence is scheduled to deliver a speech there on June 24. White House communications staff described plans for a June 4 date as tentative.
A speech by a top U.S. official on the 30th anniversary of the day Chinese troops fired on student protesters in Tiananmen Square would have been regarded as a provocation in Beijing, where government censors have endeavored to erase the national memory of the event.
So Trump decided to push back the address, four people familiar with the planning said. The president didn’t want the speech or the sanctions on surveillance companies to complicate talks about a potentially pivotal meeting with Xi at the G-20, the people said. Trump hopes the meeting will get trade talks back on track after the two sides hit an impasse in May.
Pence plans to review his remarks with Trump before the rescheduled speech, one person familiar with the planning said. The person said there are staff-level disputes over the content of the speech and that some officials in the administration had sought a further delay, but that Trump supports Pence delivering it.
Robert Daly, head of the China program at the Wilson Center, said if Pence’s speech goes ahead it would be watched by Chinese officials for signs that the Trump administration is willing to resume negotiations. “They will be listening very closely to that speech,” he said.
The delay for Pence’s speech also came after China earlier this month tried to use Pence as an interlocutor to reset the trade talks by scheduling a phone call between the American vice president and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Qishan, according to three people familiar with the matter. The U.S. government declined the request for a call, the people said.
Alyssa Farah, a Pence spokeswoman, said there was no plan for a call between Pence and Wang, nor was there a request from the Chinese for such a call.
Impasse in Talks
Official trade talks between the U.S. and China reached a stalemate last month after the Trump administration accused Beijing of reneging on provisions of a tentative deal, including safeguards against Chinese companies engaging in what the U.S. considers theft of American intellectual property.
Trump responded to the breakdown by ratcheting up tariffs on about $200 billion in Chinese imports and blacklisting Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co., cutting it off from American suppliers.
Beijing responded with a paper that said the U.S. continuously moved goal posts in the talks and demanded concessions that would go against the spirit of “mutual respect.” The country has said it will respond in-kind to Trump’s retaliatory tariffs, and has threatened to label unspecified U.S. companies as “unreliable entities” in China.
But the back-channeling with Pence and Trump’s effort to delay and potentially soften his vice president’s Tiananmen speech indicate that both sides remain open to restarting talks even as they blame each other publicly for the impasse.
Export Sanctions
The Chinese embassy in Washington declined to comment.
In conjunction with Pence’s speech, the Trump administration had planned to roll out export sanctions for a number of Chinese surveillance firms it claimed were connected to human-rights violations in the country, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg News reported last month that the U.S. is considering cutting off exports of American components and software to five Chinese companies including Megvii, Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.
The Chinese government interpreted the delay for both Pence’s speech and the sanctions as a good-faith move and see it having positive effects on communications with the U.S., a person familiar with Beijing’s internal deliberations said.
One person briefed on the situation said companies that want trade talks to resume between China and the U.S. have lobbied Pence, regarding him as a potential catalyst.
Wang has long been an emissary for the Chinese in talks with U.S. officials and other visitors, and he has a reputation for delivering sharp messages when needed. People who have negotiated with him said he is sometimes prone to lecturing U.S. officials. But he also is regarded as being close to Xi and may have more authority in Beijing than Vice Premier Liu He, who has led trade talks with the U.S.
‘New Cold War’
Trump has threatened to escalate the trade war further by enacting tariffs on at least $300 billion in Chinese imports that aren’t yet subject to U.S. duties. That would mean practically everything China sells in the U.S. would be subject to tariffs, including popular consumer goods that have so far been left out of the conflict.
In a speech last year, Pence said the two countries have entered an era of a “New Cold War,” leaving Chinese officials surprised about the tone and confused about the direction of relations.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on June 3 said in a statement that since Tiananmen Square, “hopes have been dashed” that China would integrate into the international system, lead a more open society and value human rights.
“Even as the party builds a powerful surveillance state, ordinary Chinese citizens continue to seek to exercise their human rights, organize independent unions, pursue justice through the legal system, and simply express their views, for which many are punished, jailed, and even tortured,” he said.
Beijing’s envoy to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, in response said “the real picture of China’s human rights situation is more complex than what stereotypes and assumptions convey.”
“The assumption that China is not a democracy reflects a large misunderstanding,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Times. “Democracy is a means to deliver a happy life to the people by constantly improving the governance of the country and society. The protection of human rights is a never-ending process, and China will always strive to do better.”
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