Xi Jinping, Chinese President, at a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on May 8.
Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg via Getty Images
BEIJING — A day after President Biden announced he would not seek re-election, a newspaper in China conducted an informal online poll asking: Who do you think could win, former President Donald Trump or Vice President Harris?
The result was a landslide victory for Trump, with nearly 80% of the 22,000 votes cast.
But for the Chinese government, things are not so clear.
The former president’s name actually means something in China — there’s a real estate company named Trump, a cleaning company named Trump, even one Chinese made cars called Trumpchi. After July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, there has been a wave of praise on Chinese social media for him as a tough guy. And he has been in the public eye for years.
People like Hugo Chen, 27, were caught early — in his case, by a teacher who thought he had watched Trump’s reality TV show. Probationer is a good way to learn English.
“In elementary school, probably fourth or fifth grade. [grade]”Our teacher played this program for us to listen to,” Chen said.
“I think Donald Trump is really aggressive, very powerful, and certainly very wealthy. And throughout the show, I think Donald Trump himself is a very solid image of the American dream,” he said.
But he said if he were to vote in the United States, he would not choose either party – because neither is good for China.
After Trump was elected, optimism in Beijing that he might be the man China could strike a deal with quickly faded. Trump launched a trade war in 2018 and his policy toward Beijing hardened after COVID-19 emerged.
When Biden takes office, the Chinese government already said hope the relationship will be soon come back “right way“just to be” disappointed again.
Now, faced with four years of Trump or Harris in the Oval Office, hope has given way to resignation in Beijing.
Zha Daojiong, an international relations expert at Peking University, said there is not much difference between Republicans and Democrats on the China issue.
“They have been trying to outdo each other to appear tough on China,” he said.
“It’s hard to imagine what could change in … [less than] four months before the election — or after.”
Trump has hinted that he will escalate the trade war and impose 60-100% tariffs on all imports from China into the United States.
His choice of Senator JD Vance as his running mate could also be bad news for China, according to Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
“Trump is an economic nationalist and protectionist, and his main concern when it comes to China policy is economics,” Wu said.
“I am concerned that Vance may be a national security hawk. If so, he may support increased military and geopolitical confrontation with China, particularly over Taiwan.”
On Taiwan, Trump has repeatedly refused to commit. defend the island against China — and in recent times Bloomberg Businessweek interview, he asked why should the US do so, saying “Taiwan should pay us for defense.”
On the other hand, Vance said in a speech last year that for the benefit of the United States to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to protect the microchip industry, an industry that is very important to the US economy. [[VANCE NOTORIOUSLY HAS CHANGED TUNE, SO SEEMS BETTER TO BE SPECIFIC WHEN/WHERE HE SAID WHAT AS YOU’VE DONE WITH OTHER QUOTES. I DUG UP A LINK TO THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION SPEECH I THINK BLOOMBERG WAS REFERRING TO. DOES THIS WORK?]]
President Biden is also very tough.
He maintained Trump’s tariffs, Chinese people are punished officials accused of human rights violations, Chinese fined companies that support the Russian war machine, rally allies and find a way block China has access to advanced technologies, including critical microchips.
“When I took office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States. That’s no longer the case,” he say in an Oval Office speech on July 24.
Harris appears to be agreeing with China.
“China is undermining key elements of the rules-based international order. China has challenged freedom of navigation. China has flexed its military and economic muscle to coerce and intimidate its neighbors,” she said in 2022 while visiting an American Navy train in japan
Chinese policy analysts say the current trend is not good – regardless of who is the next US president.
“If we continue on the current trajectory, I think we are gradually moving towards another crisis or some kind of confrontation,” Da Wei, an expert on China-US relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said at an international forum this month. “We need to think about what we should do, what we can do, after January, regardless of who wins the election.”
But Beijing’s options appear limited.
So far, the Chinese government has been restrained in commenting on the election.
As Trump survived an assassination attempt earlier this month, Chinese leader Xi Jinping send my condolences. When Vance called China the “greatest threat” to the United States, the State Department say it opposes China was used as an issue in the US election. And when Biden announced he would resign, a State Department spokesperson declined to commentNote that the election is an internal matter of the United States.
“I think the bottom line thinking, or stance, is very similar to what Lyndon Johnson told his Cabinet when we were busy with the Cultural Revolution,” said Zha, of Peking University. “Let’s just say nothing or do nothing and see what happens.”
He said that weighing and measuring has almost no benefits, while there are many potential disadvantages.
And ultimately, he said, the winner of the US election may not have much room to adjust policy toward China.
“The space for alternative proposals on both sides is limited, to say the least, but perhaps you can say [it’s] virtually non-existent,” Zha said. “So this is going to be very difficult.”
