David Lampton
The Chinese cultural performance of “face-changing” (bian lian), the theatre art of rapidly switching operatic masks to convey radically different feelings and characters by a single actor, is something to behold. US president-elect Donald Trump, whether by instinct or calculation, has been, and continues, practising this art against China and others.
Will Trump turn out to be the transactional businessman bent on making deals aimed at achieving principally economic gains and relief from America’s protracted wars? Or will he turn out to be a captive of what is shaping up to be a national security team still wedded to a Cold War framework in which Taiwan and other legacy issues loom large in its geopolitical and ideological thinking? Like the opera actor, he is likely to show both faces, possibly in rapid succession, confounding friends and enemies alike.
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