September 12, 2024 - Does the China issue even matter in American electoral politics?
And the political lesson for Harris-Walz
Prior to the Biden-Trump debate last month, our communications team at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) asked faculty if we’d be willing to watch the debate and offer a quick, 3-4 sentence reaction on the contents of the debate. I agreed to do it, and prepared to see some degree of China sparring at the debate, with Trump calling Biden soft on the issue, and Biden defending his record. That was the exchange that had played out in different ways over the years on social media and the campaign trail.
This wound up being my “hot take” a few minutes after the election:
Like others, my reaction to the debate was not about policy at all, really, but about Biden’s age and what that meant for his chances of re-election. I think the word China barely came up at all in the end— I remember the tail end of the debate wound up being about golf handicaps.
The same thing wound up being true of the Harris-Trump debate. We saw some initial sparring on tariffs, but at no point did the moderators ever ask the two candidates to just state their China policies plainly.
We are now only 50 or so days from the election, and it is striking to me how little the China issue has mattered. For years now, it has seemed the Democrats have been on the defensive on the China front. The Republican China hawks— in both government and media— have consistently pushed the narrative that China poses an existential threat to the United States, in doing so pushing public opinion to the right and shifting the “Overton window” of acceptable policy. In response, Biden’s China team adopted a cohesive set of policies that are anything but soft. For a nice review see this Foreign Affairs piece by Rush Doshi, who served in the NSC in the Biden Administration.
Perhaps the China issue hasn’t mattered because a.) foreign policy rarely plays a definitive role in American electoral politics and b.) because the two parties’ have China policies that closely mirror each other. They are not the same platforms of course— and frankly neither Trump nor Harris has actually articulated a meaningful China policy. But we can infer that the Republicans will probably prioritize the China threat over Russia-Ukraine and will likely enact higher across-the-board tariffs, while the Democrats will lean more heavily on diplomacy and building collective security through our alliance structure. But neither is seeking to meaningfully rebuild the relationship or rekindle the old framework of engagement, and we can’t/shouldn’t expect voters to draw meaningful distinctions between hypothetical tariff levels or military aid packages to Taiwan. Instead we are left with “vibes” about what type of leader is best suited to deal with the China challenge.
There is also a political lesson here for the future Harris-Walz administration. Should they be elected, they will be criticized on the China issue no matter they do. This is certainly what we have observed with Tim Walz, who has been hammered by the Republican pundit class, despite having arguably the best record on China human issues of any Congressperson in recent memory. It is worth watching this video from Fox News in full to see the spirit of this sort of criticism, which is just completely disingenuous, and frankly untethered from reality.
If they are going to be criticized no matter what, Harris and Walz might as well do what they think is best to manage the U.S.-China relationship, rather than try to cave to pressures from the national security right. In my opinion the Biden team missed some opportunities to stabilize the relationship by rebuilding people-to-people exchange, for example. I was surprised to see that programs like the Fulbright or Peace Corps still have not been re-established in China, and my understanding is that it is the U.S. side holding things up, not the Chinese government. I don’t really understand what the hold up was, other than that perhaps Biden didn’t want to be seen as rebuilding things with China in any way. These are the types of programs that Walz would seem to hold dear given his own experience teaching in China, and I have yet to hear a good reason why they haven’t been reinstated. Ditto for the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA), which seems to be always on the brink of expiration.
Any deviation in the direction of cooperation/engagement/exchange with China will be vulnerable to an attack from the Republican China hawks, no matter how small. Just yesterday House Republicans revived the China Initiative, which was nothing short of a racist, counterproductive debacle that will damage American science for generations to come. It will take some political courage, and some political capital, which the Harris-Walz administration may be inclined to spend elsewhere. But electorally, the China issue does not seem to loom as large in a presidential election as we might think, and that should give folks in next administration more confidence to follow their instincts.
Something to Read
A helpful explainer on the China policy positions of Harris vs. Trump from the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Amazing data work from the good folks at China Dissent Monitor who track protests and other collective action events using media/social media data.
I published a piece in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) a couple months ago about how the Chinese government is sending mixed messages about the value of rebuilding ties and people-to-people exchange.
A nice piece on options for the US-China STA from Roger Pielke Jr. at AEI.
Something Fun
My kids’ love of Bluey has given my social media algorithms an Australian bent, which led me to learn of the phenomenon that is Pub Choir. Basically you go to a bar and sing a pop song in three part harmony with a bunch of strangers. I went a couple weeks ago in Ardmore and IT WAS AMAZING. And it’s coming to a city near you.
That’s all for today, thanks for reading.
Rory