Trump needs to stop making Xi Jinping look like the savior of the liberal international order. Here’s how.

As President Trump makes his first presidential trip to Asia, there are increasing questions about American leadership in the region. Coming on the heels of China’s 19th Communist Party Congress, Trump’s trip is an opportunity to make clear that America, despite his “America First” rhetoric is not abandoning its allies. He will also need to demonstrate that the United States can stand up to North Korean belligerence while simultaneously addressing the longer term China challenge.

Trump’s visit must be viewed in the broader context of the Asia policy he inherited from the Obama administration. A renewed focus on Asia was intended to be the hallmark of the Obama administration’s grand strategy. In 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writing about “America’s Pacific Century,” in Foreign Policy wrote,

“One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will… be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Addressing the Australian parliament a month later, President Obama reassured, “So let there be no doubt: In the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in.”

The “pivot to Asia”, which later became the “rebalance”, refocused attention on a region vital to U.S. economic interests and increasingly to U.S. security. The Obama administration devoted more diplomatic attention to the region, attempted to deepen alliances, expanding relations with other partners, and pursued the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a twelve nation multilateral trade agreement intended to cement America’s engagement in the fastest growing economic region in the world.

Yet the United States was not “all in.”

After Secretary Clinton’s departure as Secretary of State, problems lurking beneath the surface become more apparent, raising questions about the strategy. Her successor, John Kerry, showed little interest in the region, and the primary face of U.S. policy toward the region became a much more junior career diplomat. The perception in the region became one of American neglect rather than deepened commitment. The Obama administration was unable to extricate itself from the Middle East and by 2014, was reengaging in European security after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine.

While the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his team attempted to pick up the slack, continuing the focus on alliance strengthening, U.S. actions in this area rang hollow given the limitations imposed by sequestration and the fact that many regional partners were interested in more than additional U.S. military assets. On the economic front, Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations dragged on and the administration did little to pursue deepen economic engagement outside of that framework.

Meanwhile, as China increased repression at home and pursued territorial expansionism in the South and East China Seas, the administration was often slow to act, fearing blowback on efforts to engage the Chinese on economic issues as well as its climate agenda. Chinese pressure on Taiwan and increasing disregard for Hong Kong’s autonomy went unchallenged, in an approach that was foreshadowed by Clinton herself days after her first trip to Beijing when she told reporters:

“Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis.”

Into this mixed record entered candidate Donald Trump. For years, Trump had claimed to understand the challenge posed by China, including — notably — in this September 2011 tweet:

During his presidential campaign, he pledged to stand up to China’s actions. His top strategist, Steve Bannon, went even further, predicting in a radio interview in 2016 that “We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years. There’s no doubt about that.”

Yet in the White House, Trump has been more lamb than lion. His most consequential economic action has been the withdrawal of the United States from TPP, undermining our alliances and empowering Beijing. He has continued to issue occasional threats against China for its trade practices, but his rhetoric about Xi Jinping has been overwhelmingly positive, even going so far as to praise Xi for his “extraordinary elevation” at the Party Congress.

As Trump’s tweets make clear, as Xi emerges the 19th Party Congress, he can claim credit for successfully navigating the perils of an unpredictable new American presidency in ways that many U.S. allies can only aspire to. On his first visit to Beijing, Secretary of State Tillerson read talking points that echoed Chinese Communist Party mantras. The Trump administration has established four dialogues with the regime, on issues ranging from economic cooperation to law enforcement and cyber security. The last meeting of one of these groups, the “Social and Cultural Dialogue,” led to the specter of the world’s greatest democracy discussing “civil society” with the largest communist dictatorship and one of the world’s most repressive regimes without even criticizing China’s draconian crackdown on NGOs.

Campaign rhetoric aside, the reality is that the Trump approach to China has been the same as Obama’s — to treat Beijing as a strategic partner, not an adversary. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the President’s single-minded focus on North Korea, which has distracted from longer term challenges like China’s land-grab in the South China Sea or China’s strategic economic and military campaign to undermine American influence in the region.

This means that like Obama’s “rebalance,” Trump’s Asia strategy has relied predominantly on America’s military presence. Yet, U.S. military planners are increasingly focused on North Korean contingencies and although the Trump administration rhetorically supports fixing sequestration, significant progress has yet to be made.

On the economic front, the Trump administration has failed to replace TPP with any alternative strategy, even one structured around a series of bilateral agreements. This has left U.S. partners susceptible to pressures as China has expanded its economic agenda in the region through its own multilateral trade agreements and initiatives such as its Belt and Road Initiative.

The European Union and other actors are moving strategically to advance their economic interests in the region, with Brussels reaching an agreement in principle with Japan and prioritizing negotiations with India. Meanwhile, just a few months short of one quarter of Trump’s time in office, U.S. negotiators are spending their time attempting to reopen previous U.S. agreements rather than thinking strategically about how to strategically advance U.S. economic interests in the region.

Another byproduct of the Trump team’s mixed signals on China will have longer-term consequences. Asia, as Obama administration officials liked to say, will determine the fate of the twenty-first century. If America is going to be up the to challenge, the American people will need to be persuaded that the region matters and is worth long-term U.S. engagement. This will require leaders who clearly explain the stakes and why this region will need our military and economic commitment and ultimately attention. Maintaining the support of the American public for a long-term and costly presence in Asia will not be possible if our leaders don’t clearly articulate the challenge posed by authoritarians like Xi Jinping and an expansionist China with global ambitions.

Xi used the Communist Party Congress to lay out these ambitions. Picking up on a theme he began at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he attempted to portray an emerging China as a power willing to fill the void left by a retreating America. This is a narrative that is alluring to some U.S. allies in Europe who worry about the Trump administration’s rejection of the rules-based international order. They point to Chinese cooperation in countering climate change in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, Chinese support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, and Chinese advancement of a regional trade agenda and extensive international investment through its Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi’s message falls on less fertile ground in his own neighborhood because China’s neighbors see the peril of this authoritarian globalism and understand that a China-dominated order is not in their interests. Yet those elsewhere looking for alternatives to U.S. leadership still see a glimmer of hope, however unrealistic, of Chinese leadership. The problem for those looking for alternatives to American leadership is that China’s actions quickly burst the “Xi as globalist” bubble. Shortly after Trump’s Paris decision, an EU-China summit ended without agreement on a joint statement on climate. In many European countries, there is growing awareness of nefarious Chinese trade practices and the national security threat posed by some Chinese companies. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has also initiated assessment in Brussels of implications for EU member states on the periphery and more awareness regarding Chinese influence efforts within Europe.

Yet the flirtation of some with the Chinese leadership narrative is an important reminder about the danger of prioritization of the institutions and processes of the international order at the expense of the values that have been the foundation of its success. China’s attempt to adopt the rhetoric of the liberal international order without modifying its policies should be a wake up call to other members of that order who fail to grasp the centrality of values to the success of the post-1945 order, most importantly, the Trump administration.

Just as the Obama strategy was undermined by leaders unable to speak honestly about the China challenge, America will be unable to convince its allies that it is the true upholder of international norms if the Trump administration continues to lavish praise on Chinese authoritarians and fails to hold them accountable for their actions. Trump’s visit to Asia is an opportunity to begin to change the emerging narrative about Xi’s global ascendance.