China sees an opportunity – created by US President Donald Trump and the global chaos he is creating – to influence New Zealand’s actions in the world, according to an expert on the Chinese Communist Party. “If you’re a propagandist sitting in Beijing, Trump is the gift you never thought you’d get,” says Sam Chetwin George, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations in New York. He recently published a piece in Foreign Affairs magazine about how Beijing is making the most of this “age of anarchy”. “They’re like any big power: they are focused on their own interests and they’re focused on their own objectives.” Xi is “obsessed with strength” and returning China to what he sees as its rightful position in the world as a great civilisation and a great country, George says.