This Tuesday’s US presidential election will decide whether Washington’s China policy stays its current course under a Kamala Harris presidency or veers in new, unknown directions under a Donald Trump 2.0 administration, Chinese media reports say.
Chinese pundits and commentators widely believe Harris would be more predictable as her Democratic Party is driven more by ideology and policy continuity. While Trump is seen as unpredictable, many speculate he may be more willing to negotiate with China if a deal would bring actual economic benefits for the US in line with his “America First” vision.
“If Harris is elected, she will generally continue the Biden administration’s China strategy,” Shiu Sin-por, president of the New Paradigm Foundation Company Limited, a pro-Beijing think tank established in 2007, said in an article published on October 31. “Even if there is any adjustment, the magnitude will be limited. The future trend of Sino-US relations will be clear.”
He says both Democrats and Republicans see China as the United States’ top adversary but Democrats care more about ideology and believe that China’s rise will continue to challenge the values of the US and West’s current world order.
Shiu says that if Harris wins, the US will continue its efforts to slow the growth of China’s military power, high-technology industries and other core economic sectors.
“But if Trump wins, the changes in the United States’ China policy will be greater and harder to predict,” he says. “Trump will probably use some practical tools such as tariffs and incentive schemes to lure companies to return to the US.”
“From China’s perspective, it is less likely that China can agree on anything with the Harris administration than with the Trump one. Trump is a very smart businessman and is willing to negotiate with China,” Shiu says. “Of course, We should not ignore Trump’s fickle, weak-principled and extreme characters.”
Shiu opines that if Trump wins, then US relations with the EU, Japan and Taiwan will also change as Trump wants allies to contribute to his “Make America Great Again” plan to reindustrialize the US.
60% tariffs loom large
In 2018, Trump initiated a trade war against China by imposing a 25% tariff on a basket of Chinese goods. After US President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, Beijing had once thought that Washington would cancel the tariffs and de-escalate the technology war in the name of better bilateral relations.
However, the Biden administration intensified both by unveiling new export control rules to prevent China from obtaining high-end chips and chip-making equipment from the US and steep new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs). It also kept selling weapons to Taiwan and persuaded the EU to also impose tariffs on Chinese EVs.
Some Chinese commentators surmise it’s inevitable that a new intense round of the trade war will erupt under Trump, who has vowed to impose a 60% tariff on all imported Chinese goods. However, some commentators noted China may not be the biggest victim of the new tariffs.
“To prepare for a new Sino-US trade war, China has already conducted a comprehensive assessment and is planning for ‘de-financialization’ and the formation of the BRICS payment system to reduce the negative impact caused by the US interest rate cut,” a Shanxi-based columnist wrote on November 2 under the headline “If Trump wins, who will be the biggest victim?”
“De-financialization” is China’s national policy to reduce leveraging activities and asset bubbles in the country. “If Trump takes office, the US will stop aiding Ukraine while the Russia-Ukraine war will not continue,” he says. “Russia will benefit from this and gain a higher international status.”
He predicts a Trump 2.0 administration “may initiate a trade war against the EU, discourage American investment in India and force allies such as South Korea and Japan to contribute more to the United States’ defense plan in Asia.”
“The world’s pattern will undergo profound changes if Trump returns to the White House. But this may not be a bad thing, as long as we are well-prepared,” the Chinese columnist writes.
Structural conflicts
Other commentators speculate that Harris and Trump would take very different approaches to resolving future US-China conflicts.
“If Harris is elected, the United States’ China policies will be relatively more predictable but at the same time the US-led alliance against China will continue to exist,” Cheng Li, founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong, told the media on the sidelines of a forum in Shenzhen on October 13.
Li said Sino-US relations will become more unpredictable if Trump wins as he tends to make decisions based on trade benefits and his personal relationships with country leaders.
As a student of former and now-deceased US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Li assessed that the national powers of China and the US are evenly matched, which he said is unprecedented in contemporary geopolitics.
He said the two nations’ structural conflicts, caused by their differences in political systems, economic models and ideologies, will continue for years to come. He said both countries should realize that neither side can win or lose without causing destruction to mankind.
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American elections are low IQ races to the bottom. It matters not what head is shuffled in every 4 years. The persistent Deep State machinery will always remain arrogant and self defeating. Trump’s total misunderstanding of economics and wanton abuse of sanctions and tariffs against anybody wanting to walk off America’s post-WW2 plantation, will only accelerate US imperial demise. So bring on Chump, err, Trump. The other fool, she needs batteries replaced every 4 hours, which is an improvement over Biden, who needs batteries replaced every 15 minutes. How funny then, China has an upper limit on age in office at 68. The US on the other hand, is a slobbering gerontocracy with no upper limits on age.
Xi Jinping was born on the 15 of June 1953. Which makes him 71 years old.
There are many views from the Chinese media. One of them is that whoever wins the next US election isn’t that important any more. The tools on the US toolkit are getting fewer, and China can manage whatever US throw at it.