Cup of Cha
This is China

Looking at the range of candidates, it is interesting to guess who would be most beneficial for China. Off the top we can knock Kucinich off their list of top choices. He is highly protectionist, and would do everything possible to limit trade with China while giving Beijing headaches about their human rights abuses. Of course he’d have to implement agenda from his Cleveland home because he’s not getting closer to the White House than that.

Putting aside the little candidate with the tall hot wife, typically China would probably rather have a Dem in the White House. However, they might be open to this year’s batch of GOPers. Human rights is usually one of the big stumbling blocks in the relationship with the US, and we know from Rudy’s record in NYC (and his stance on torture), he is not too likely to rebuke China on that score. In fact Romney, and Thompson also seem to have similar views on ‘enhanced interrogation methods’, which is the kind of cover the Chinese government loves to have.

McCain is probably the worst case scenario for Beijing in some ways. He’ll be credibly tough about human rights abuses, and take the Republican hard line on military issues more often than not. However, he does believe in free and open trade, and has spent more time in Asia than the rest of them together (although that doesn’t mean he has fond memories of it). I think the best way to sum up a McCain White House’s relationship with China would be that he would not take any crap, but he also would not be dumb enough to call the PRC “The Republic of China.” Difficult but competent. And of course they are probably happy with any government foolish enough to spend all of its political capital in Iraq while allowing China to go unchecked.

Then there’s Huckabee. Well, we’re pretty sure he’s heard of China. Somewhat sure anyway.

Moving on the top two Democrats, it is a little difficult to know how they would feel about Obama or Hillary. Bill was widely popular here, and under his watch China earned permanent most favored nation status (it used to come to a vote each year), secured WTO membership, and won the Olympic hosting honors. During the NPR debate a few weeks Obama had a slightly protectionist view towards China, but nothing too outrageous (the audio is here, and the transcript here). In fact a lot of the time he emphasized a tough but conciliatory approach:

If China is polluting, then eventually that is going to reach our shores. We have to — and work with them cooperatively to solve their problems as well as ours.

Later in the debate he added on the topic of food safety:

we will have our own safety inspectors on the ground. Japan does this right now. They set up their own inspection standards in China, and they say, “Unless you meet our inspection standards, you cannot ship in here.” If we don’t have labor agreements and environmental agreements that are enforceable, then there are consequences in terms of them being able to import into this country.

The point is, is that we have a set of tools available to us that have not been used, and part of the reason is because when we talk about Chinese exports, oftentimes we are talking about U.S. companies that have moved to China, are manufacturing there and are trying to ship back here, and they still have influence, and those special interests have to be diminished in their voice in Washington.

Edwards, meanwhile talks about getting tough with China in a highly confrontational way, much as he advocating “fighting” with the Republicans, corporations, and anyone else he can think of. The former senator argued:

I think that what’s happened with the last seven years with the Bush administration is America’s faced over the long term with two very serious challenges, one of which they’ve been a bit obsessed with, which is the issue of terrorism. The other is the rise and strength of China, which they’ve done virtually nothing about on any front, I mean, ranging from China sending dangerous toys into the United States to our trade relationship with China to, as Robert just mentioned, their buildup of their military, which they’re doing opaquely. We know very little about what they’re actually doing. On top of that, they’re obsessed with their own internal economic development, and that results in them propping up bad regimes, like Sudan, like Iran…

…what’s happened is big corporate America is driving American policy with respect to China. They get their way, and the American people lose.

Interestingly the part of his argument that seems to match Obama’s is on the influence of corporations, always a favorite target in Democratic primaries. Lastly, Clinton talked about how tough she was on China during her visit here a decade ago. She told the audience how she would deal with China:

And they didn’t want me to make a speech, and when I made the speech, they blocked it out from being heard within China, where I stood up for human rights and in particular women’s rights, because women had been so brutally abused in many settings in China.

And I think you do have to call them on it. I mean, the Chinese respect us if we actually call them on their misbehavior and their breaches of human rights, economic activities and other kinds of problems that we have with them.

I’m not trying to minimize the amount of women that are abused in China, but it is slightly odd to look at it as the most pressing issue. There is a tremendous amount of room for improvement, but the US does as well. (I’d like to take this moment to not the passing of Ike Turner. In addition I am wondering if ‘brutally abused’ is only physical, or if it includes husbands repeatedly and publicly cheating on their wives in humiliating ways. I’m just checking. What? Not fair game?) Anyway, does anyone really think that Hillary is going to stand up to China on human rights in a meaningful way? The Clintons are hardly known for their backbone. I think the word ‘panderers’ comes to mind more quickly.

Beyond being the ‘iron lady,’ she also focused on the theme of fiscal responsibility, arguing that as long as America is dependent on China financing its debt, the country will continue to lose strategic positioning:

So until we set our fiscal house back in order and until we understand that we have to have a strategic relationship with China, it’s going to be very difficult for us to use whatever leverage we have. And I fear that if we don’t start taking steps to demonstrate that we are back in charge of our fiscal destiny, that we do have a coherent diplomatic approach toward China, China will continue to gain leverage over us.

I’d guess that China would like Clinton to be president. They know the Clintons are cautious and calculating. They won’t be best friends, but they won’t start a war either. Edwards is not too appealing, while the Republicans (perhaps minus Huck) would be eager to show how manly and tough they are. Obama might intrigue them, but it’s tough to know what his presidency would look like, and that could scare them. Then again, what’s the worst he would do? It’s not like he’d bomb an embassy or something.

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Tags: edwards, hillary, obama
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