With Trump's Push, China Changing Its Relations With The World

2025-04-29 12:01:13

(MENAFN- Asia Times) China has spent much of the past two months shoring up friendships both near and far. Two rounds of ministerial meetings with regional rivals Japan and South Korea took place in Tokyo and Seoul at the end of March.

And earlier in April, the red carpet was rolled out for the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez , for his second visit to Beijing in less than seven months. This came shortly before the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, embarked on his first overseas trip of 2025 – a charm offensive to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia.

Central to these diplomatic moves is Donald Trump, whose return to the White House has clearly unsettled the boundaries between friend and foe.

China, Japan and South Korea have historically approached one another with caution. This is a legacy of imperial aggression, unresolved territorial disputes and diverging security alignments with the US.

But the unpredictability of the Trump administration, which has most recently been demonstrated by the imposition of sweeping trade tariffs, seems to be bringing the three countries closer together.

At the ministerial meeting in Tokyo in March, their respective governments agreed to extend the tenure of the secretary-general and deputy secretaries of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat from two years to three. This still relatively unknown international organisation was established in 2011 in an effort to promote cooperation between the three countries.

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