Trump and Xi Hold Talks on Multiple Issues During State Visit

The takes

• 

  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  'Red Carpets, Red Flags: Xi’s Visit and the Price of Political Theatre'

  Lavish hospitality for a communist ruler, paired with domestic cries against communism, reveals less a subtle statecraft than an undisciplined pursuit of applause that leaves the public with the bill.

  When a ruler rolls out a literal red carpet for a visiting leader who governs an unfree regime, furnishes him with a grand state dinner, parades him past a gallery of national heroes and a fresh-hewn helicopter pad, and then escorts him to the archives to contemplate the founding charters of a free republic, we have not merely etiquette to consider. We witness an experiment in moral philosophy conducted on live subjects. For, in the same season, that ruler has been busily denouncing his domestic opponents as communists, even as he toasts the world’s most powerful communist leader as a “truly great friend.” When language and ceremony pull in opposite directions, it is usually the public that is quietly torn in two.

  Read the essay →
• 

  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  Red Carpets for Absolute Power Betray the Trust of Free Peoples

  When a republic lavishes honor on a despot without clear public warrant or evident public good, it spends the people’s consent like loose coin and teaches them to forget what liberty is for.

  I read that the ruler of the United States has rolled out a literal red carpet, a lavish state dinner, and a tour of the nation’s constitutional relics for the head of a one‑party communist state, and I am told this is justified as mere reciprocity for hospitality received abroad. I see also that he met this guest behind closed doors for ninety minutes, speaking of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and of the Korean Peninsula, while the only detailed account so far comes from the visitor’s own government. All this occurs while the host’s own political language brands his domestic rivals as “communists.” One hardly needs much philosophy to see that something does not fit.

  Read the essay →
• 

  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  'Red Carpets, Red Lines: Trump, Xi, and the Price of Spectacle'

  When a leader rolls out the ballroom and the granite helipad for a rival he has called a menace, the question is not hypocrisy but whether the show serves the state or merely the man.

  Trump meets Xi at a military base, escorts him through gallery walls of presidents and a fresh granite helicopter pad, to a ballroom still under construction, then to a state dinner packed with the lords of your new economy. He praises a “truly great friendship.” The Chinese leader speaks of “responsible major countries” and a “new approach.” Behind closed doors they talk for ninety minutes about wars and weapons. Outside, members of Trump’s own camp denounce a “red carpet for a despot,” reminding anyone who will listen of atrocities and communism. This is the scene. I begin, as always, from the effect: what such theater does to power.

  Read the essay →