From ‘cheats’ to ‘great friendship’: How Trump’s rhetoric on China changed

When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington on Wednesday evening, United States President Donald Trump rolled out a warm and unusually lavish welcome for his Chinese counterpart.

Trump went down to Joint Base Andrews near Washington to greet Xi on the tarmac – the first time a US president has greeted a foreign leader in such a way since 1962, when John F Kennedy welcomed UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

Though the Xi-Trump meeting delivered little significant shift in relations beyond extending a fragile trade war truce for another two months , Washington laid on hours of pageantry, more pomp and lavish tours for Xi’s entourage, and praise for the Chinese president and his wife.

But the warmth on display in Washington this week contrasts starkly with the language Trump has used to characterise Beijing and Xi in the past. We map how the language of communication, and the larger relationship, has changed over a decade.

On Twitter, now X, Trump posted: “No surprise that China was caught cheating in the Olympics. That’s the Chinese M.O. – Lie, Cheat & Steal in all international dealings.”

Trump said at a campaign event in South Carolina: “You can win against China if you’re smart. But our people don’t have a clue. We give state dinners to the heads of China. I said, why are you doing state dinners for them? They’re ripping us left and right. Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table.”

In his book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, Trump wrote: “There are people who wish I wouldn’t refer to China as our enemy. But that’s exactly what they are. They have destroyed entire industries by utilizing low-wage workers, cost us tens of thousands of jobs, spied on our businesses, stolen our technology, and have manipulated and devalued their currency, which makes importing our goods more expensive – and sometimes, impossible.”

At an election campaign rally in Indiana, Trump stated: “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”