China will hand President Trump a modest trade agreement - and try to extract a seismic shift on Taiwan in return. That was the shared warning from Jake Sullivan and H.R. McMaster, two former national security advisors from opposing administrations, speaking on the World Class podcast at Stanford University.
Sullivan said Trump wants "the big beautiful trade deal" but will get "a small, less beautiful trade deal" - some accommodation on tariffs and purchase commitments aimed at shrinking the trade deficit. Nothing in it will address China's industrial overcapacity "that is flooding the world with products on a non-commercial basis," he said. As "Hvylya" reports, Sullivan identified the real danger elsewhere: "The Chinese are interested in getting President Trump to say something different about Taiwan - about peaceful reunification or opposing independence - some formula that moves the needle in their direction." He added bluntly: "I think President Trump might be tempted to do that."
McMaster reached for a Peanuts analogy. "If you can picture Xi Jinping as Lucy and President Trump as Charlie Brown, I think that is what is going to happen again - Xi is going to move the football," he said. When Trump visits Beijing in April, McMaster predicted, "Xi is going to feel like this is President Trump going to supplicate to the emperor, and the visuals will be designed to do that."
Both advisors flagged a critical shift from the first Trump term: the productive Chinese interlocutors - like former vice premier Liu He - are gone. Xi Jinping has purged his circle and surrounded himself with hardliners. McMaster singled out Wang Huning and others who "truly believe that the West is in decline, that we are weak, that we are decadent, that we are divided." Sullivan reinforced the point, noting Beijing's mantra - "The East is rising, the West is declining" - reflects genuine conviction, not posturing.
Sullivan said his contacts in China expect up to four leader-level meetings in 2026: Trump's trip to Beijing, a Xi visit to the United States, China hosting the APEC summit, and the U.S. hosting the G20. That volume of engagement creates both opportunity and risk. The two former advisors diverged on one point: McMaster predicted Trump would eventually revert to a competitive posture after Beijing fails to deliver. Sullivan was less sure. "It seems to me that he is going to accept something short of phase two, declare victory, and say: I have made peace with Xi," Sullivan said.
Earlier, we reported: Russia's Last Great War: Zeihan Explains Why the Kremlin Will Fight Until It Runs Out of Men.