Bashar Assad's fall reminds Xi Jinping of a Donald Trump bombshell

Bashar Assad's fall reminds Xi Jinping of a Donald Trump bombshell

This week we discusses a likely geopolitical consequence following the collapse of Bashar Assad's regime. The ousting of the Syrian leader may have reminded Chinese President Xi Jinping of a bitter episode relating to the broken Middle East country. In 2017, during a welcoming dinner for Xi at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the then-U.S. president suddenly ordered airstrikes on Syria for Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons.
 
Caught off guard, Xi made a remark that could be taken as Beijing's acceptance of the U.S. action. By ordering airstrikes during the dinner, Trump had an ulterior motive: to pressure Xi on the North Korea issue. China at the time was showing reluctance to cooperate with the U.S. to address the authoritarian country's nuclear and missile programs.
 
The Russia-backed Assad regime collapsed over the weekend, right when an economic partnership between China and Syria was about to begin. With Trump's return to the White House, four key figures -- including Xi, Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un -- could very well find themselves reprising their roles in an old geopolitical drama. Will Trump provide a deja vu moment by reaching out to Xi to help keep Putin and Kim in check?