On November 6th, one day after the elections in the United States, the Beijing correspondent of a Hong Kong newspaper pointed out that the Elon Musk’s “growing influence” with President-elect Donald Trump “has raised hopes of an easing” in relations between the United States and China. On Chinese social media there was speculation whether the head of Tesla could become a “new Kissinger”, in allusion to the American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who led the policy of opening up to China initiated in 1972 by another President of the Republican Party, Richard Nixon.
Musk is not just a “friend of China”, or “more or less pro-China”, as he himself has defined himself. The Tesla factory in Shanghai, opened in 2019 when Trump had already launched a trade war against China, is “a successful model of economic cooperation”, says Chinese Premier Li Qiang. He is the regime’s “number two”, after the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and president of the Republic, Xi Jinping.
Source: expresso.pt
