Trump and Xi Jinping’s deadly game of chess
5/20/202626 min
The world watched Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit across from each other in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week. Two leaders with radically different foreign policy styles but the same conviction: that the future belongs to the bold.
Trump’s approach to foreign policy has looked like a blitz attack, complete with tariffs, airstrikes and threatening to close strategic chokepoints to force rivals into line. In contrast, Xi’s strategy is slower, colder, and arguably more dangerous. He’s spent years stockpiling resources, staging large-scale military exercises and playing the long game around Taiwan. Two very different strategies, but the same ambition. Two grandmasters are playing for control of the chessboard.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Sam Hawley0:13
It's a podcast explaining one big news story affecting your world in just 15 minutes, from ABC investigations to politics, the cost of living, to major global events. Expert guests and journalists join me to explain why the world works the way it does. Follow the ABC News Daily podcast on ABC Listen This podcast was produced on the lands of the Awabakal and Gadigal people.
Matt Bevan· Host0:39
Geopolitics has been full of a lot of chess metaphors lately It was like a checkmate on the Supreme Leader.
Speaker 40:47
It was absolutely brilliant military strategy President Trump is hoping that this latest chess move of his was enough So at the moment it's kind of like a big game of aerial chess So it's really checkmate on not only Iran, but China as well We lost.
Speaker 81:03
We lost. Checkmate, right?
Matt Bevan· Host1:04
Now, I've played a fair bit of chess and I've learned that people with different personalities play the game in different ways. I, for example, do not have the patience to learn how to play the game properly, so my go-to move is an opening known as the scholar's mate. It involves starting the game with an explosive attack using my queen and bishop. If it goes to plan