Is the U.S. government nothing more than a slapdash ensemble?

This morning, after getting up, I heard some news that made me realize I still don’t fully understand the world number one superpower. On July 2, U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegeseth ordered a halt to arms shipments to Ukraine, citing insufficient stockpiles in the U.S. Just five days later, on July 7, President Trump announced the resumption of military aid to Ukraine. This in itself wasn’t particularly surprising—frequent policy reversals are common in the U.S. government. However, at a cabinet meeting in the White House on July 8, when someone asked Trump who had authorized the pause in arms shipments to Ukraine, Trump responded by asking, “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”

This means that President Trump was unaware of the Secretary of Defense’s order on July 2 to halt arms shipments to Ukraine. In other words, Secretary Hegeseth acted on his own authority. That’s almost unbelievable—this isn’t some trivial matter. We’re talking about suspending arms support to a country actively engaged in war, and it’s Ukraine, the very nation Trump promised to resolve the war issue for on his first day in office. Yet the Secretary of Defense issued such a major order without the President’s knowledge.

Moreover, from the context, Trump made this remark during a cabinet meeting. Since it was a cabinet meeting, Secretary Hegeseth was likely present, which means President Trump publicly embarrassed him. But the question is, this isn’t child’s play—why would Trump go out of his way to put Hegeseth on the spot like this?

There are two puzzling things here: First, how did Secretary of Defense Hegeseth dare to issue such a critical and sensitive order without President Trump’s approval? Second, why didn’t Trump try to cover up Hegeseth’s unbelievable move? After all, a defense secretary disregarding the president and causing confusion in decision-making and command is a huge scandal for any country—far more serious than President Clinton’s affair with his intern back in the day.

In my view, even if something like this really happened, the priority should be to maintain the country’s image externally, and then deal with the matter internally.

However, the way things work in the United States is quite astonishing: not only has the country made no effort to save face externally, but so far, there also seems to be no indication of any serious disciplinary action being taken internally. While I was struggling to understand this, I suddenly recalled two other incidents, and things began to make a bit more sense.

In 2016, during the standoff between China and the U.S. in the South China Sea, the then-Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Harris, gave an order down the chain of command to open fire on China. Just imagine—if the United States had fired the first shot at China at that time, would China have let it go so easily? What kind of major impact would a direct military conflict between these two great powers have had on both countries? And what kind of profound consequences would it have brought to the world?

At that critical moment, however, Admiral Harris’s subordinate decided to double-check with the White House. Interestingly, the White House said they had not authorized Harris to give the order to open fire. As a result, the standoff between China and the US ended as a test of wills rather than an exchange of gunfire. Let’s think about it: if shots had actually been fired at that time, what kind of world would we be living in today? And within this dramatic episode, there are also two puzzling aspects.

The first puzzling aspect is that although Harris ordered his subordinate to open fire, the subordinate did not follow the command. Instead, he bypassed Harris and directly sought confirmation from the White House, and ultimately did not carry out Harris’s order. The second puzzling aspect is that the White House later confirmed it had not authorized Harris to give the order to open fire, which shows that Harris did not inform or seek approval from the White House either.

To sum up, Harris didn’t inform or seek approval from the White House, and Harris’s subordinate didn’t follow Harris’s command either. In other words, each level ignored the orders from the level above—they were all just doing their own thing. But this was happening on the battlefield, during wartime! This is a matter that could affect world peace and the fate of humanity.

This is the United States—situations like this happen there all the time. Let me give another example: According to revelations in a new book by two veteran journalists, during the last three months of Trump’s presidency, from late 2020 to early 2021, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, secretly called senior Chinese military officials twice to assure them that the United States would not launch an attack, and that if the U.S. were planning an attack, he would give advance warning to the Chinese side.

The first call took place on October 30, 2020, just four days before the U.S. presidential election. The second was on January 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol riot. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. military and the principal military advisor to the President and Secretary of Defense—Milley holds a position second only to the President and the Secretary of Defense in the U.S. military command system.

After this was revealed, many American politicians harshly condemned the action as treason. On September 28, 2021, when Mark Milley testified before Congress, he did not deny what had happened, but instead tried to justify his actions. He told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee: “I know, and I am certain, that President Trump had no intention of attacking the Chinese. It is my direct responsibility to convey the president’s orders and intentions.”

Whether this kind of behavior is reasonable in the U.S. is not something I am concerned about as a Chinese netizen. What matters to me is that he admitted this really did happen.

From these three incidents, we can see that in the United States, it’s actually quite common for subordinates not to follow their superiors’ orders. Sometimes, this might even be beneficial for the world—though other times, that may not be the case. In any case, disobedience is a frequent occurrence in America. There is only one China in the world, but there is at least more than one United States.

What I mean is that there are all kinds of factions within the United States. For example, when it comes to issues related to China, many people advocate for putting pressure on China, but there is also a significant portion who oppose this approach, such as those in the high-tech industry, industrial capitalists, and Wall Street financial capital. There’s even a popular joke circulating online: if God were to call roll for every country in the world, each time he names a country, one person would stand up to answer on behalf of that country. But when it’s America’s turn, four or five people would stand up. This includes, but is not limited to, the President of the United States, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and even the so-called “fourth branch of power,” the Federal Reserve. So in front of America, even God might be confused—who, exactly, is the United States, and who truly represents America?

Even within the office of the U.S. president alone, there can be many different voices. For example, during the standoff between China and the United States in the South China Sea, the American commander on the front line, Harris, ordered an attack on China, but President Obama at the time did not support opening fire. Or take the end of Trump’s first presidential term: the whole world was worried that Trump might be preparing to go to war with China, yet his top general assured China that if the U.S. military made any moves, he would give China advance notice—showing that he did not want war with China. Another example is the issue of Ukraine: Defense Secretary Hegeseth was able to unilaterally order the suspension of arms shipments to Ukraine, only for President Trump to later overturn his decision. To Chinese people, all this might seem like utter chaos, but in the United States, this is simply the reality.

Let’s go back to the question raised at the beginning: why didn’t Trump simply cover up Hegeseth’s unauthorized actions, and then quietly impose serious disciplinary measures? If we look at the outcomes for the previous two high-ranking American officials who acted so brazenly, the answer becomes clear.

In 2016, Admiral Harris, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, gave the unauthorized order to open fire on China. He was later transferred to become the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, a move which was seen by the media as a form of punishment. But in Chinese terms, this was simply moving from one important post to a somewhat more ordinary one, shifting from a military to a civilian role. For a general who did not follow orders and gave an unauthorized order to open fire, strictly speaking, such an action would warrant the death penalty—yet all he received was a change in post.

Now let’s look at America’s highest-ranking general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who secretly called Chinese military officials. His case was different in that it became a huge media sensation and even led to him testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Despite defying the president at the end of 2020, Milley did not retire until September 2023. Note that he retired three years later and faced no punishment whatsoever.

So from this, we can infer that when Hegeseth disobeyed President Trump’s orders this time, Trump couldn’t—or wouldn’t—really do anything to him either. If you were Trump, what would you be thinking? You’d probably wonder: if this kind of muddled decision ends up having serious consequences, who will be held responsible? From a common-sense perspective, it would certainly be the president’s responsibility. But in this case, it was Hegeseth acting on his own—Trump would feel that he’s being wronged, so why should he take the fall for someone else’s mistake? After all, what kind of person is Trump? He’s the type who makes others take the blame for him, not the other way around!

So, Trump’s approach in this situation was to simply and directly make the issue public—essentially to absolve himself of responsibility, while also showing his own sense of helplessness. Therefore, when public opinion mocks the Trump administration as an amateur team, it doesn’t seem to be unjustified. From a Chinese perspective, does dealing with such an amateur administration inspire a bit more confidence, or does it lead to greater concern? After all, you never know when they might create some unexpected incident, or how long any agreement reached between the two sides will really last. That’s why, when dealing with both China and the United States, it’s important to realize that there is only one China in the world, but there are many “Americas.”

When dealing with the many different “Americas,” China should adopt different approaches—dividing and managing them accordingly—instead of always reacting aggressively at the first sign of conflict. There are some “Americas” we may need to confront, but there are also some we can cooperate with. Mao Zedong wrote many articles emphasizing the importance of taking full advantage of contradictions within the enemy camp to achieve China’s own objectives. Of course, China should also recognize that, because the American government often operates like an improvised troupe, it’s impossible to know when something unexpected will happen, which makes it highly unpredictable. As a result, many of the world’s risks also originate from this kind of unpredictability.

There’s one more thing: on December 1, 2018, the presidents of China and the United States held a historic dinner meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Yet on that very day, with U.S. support, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou—the CFO of Huawei and the eldest daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei. Looking back, what was President Trump, who was about to meet with the Chinese leader, really planning? The answer is: nothing at all, because he had no idea about this incident beforehand. John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor at the time, admitted in his memoir that it was he who orchestrated the incident, and Trump knew nothing about it in advance. In fact, Trump only learned about it on his way to the meeting with the Chinese delegation, just as he was walking down the corridor to the meeting room.

How else can we describe the United States? America really is a “grassroots troupe”, a “slapdash ensemblean”.