China has proven a reliable punching bag, and potential vote-getter, for US presidential candidates: The fast-growing country's massive factories, staffed by underpaid workers, fill US stores with tainted food and dangerous toys, voters are told.
Candidates accuse China's government of crushing dissent and befriending thug rulers in Sudan and Myanmar; Beijing's currency manipulation and trade distortions, they say, make it impossible for US companies to compete.
As a crucial primary on Tuesday in the industrial, midwestern US state of Ohio approaches, Senator Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential front-runner Senator Barack Obama are each working to convince voters that they are the stronger candidate to confront China.
PHOTO: AP
The campaign China-bashing offers another side to what US President George W. Bush calls the "complicated" relationship with Beijing. His administration has balanced criticism with a recognition of China as an important trading partner and as a world power whose cooperation is needed to settle nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.
Voters are wary of China's rise. With US recession fears growing, many Americans are more likely to think about jobs lost to China than about the low prices they pay for Chinese products. Their view of China's power can also be exaggerated: A recent survey found that four in 10 Americans believed China, not the US, was the world's top economic power.
Candidates are trying to tap into that unease. Yet, despite the tough talk, whoever wins the White House could take a more moderate approach The next president will need Chinese help to confront a host of global issues important to the US.
Clinton, in a foreign policy speech this week, dealt with voter discomfort with China. "Today, China's steel comes here and our jobs go there," she said. "We play by the rules and they manipulate their currency. We get tainted fish and lead-laced toys and poisoned pet food in return."
Obama has recently called China "the biggest beneficiary and the biggest problem that we have with respect to trade."
He spoke of Ohio workers watching equipment being "unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China, resulting in devastating job losses and communities completely falling apart."
In Ohio, where thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared this decade, the complaints on China will appeal to voters.
"China is very front and center," Senator Sherrod Brown, an Democrat from the state, said. "My guess is both candidates would acknowledge that trade is a bigger issue in Ohio than even they knew."
China's economic and trade policies have long been criticized by US lawmakers and manufacturers, especially as a huge US trade deficit with China has grown. The trade gap has been blamed for contributing to the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs in the US since 2000.
Dozens of bills in Congress would punish China for what critics see as unfair trade practices.
Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank, said that whatever the candidates say about China during the campaign, Bush's successor will find a way to improve ties with China.
As Obama and Clinton fight for the right to face presumed Republican nominee Senator John McCain, China is closely watching how it is portrayed by the candidates.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (
Asked if US-China relations could be hurt by domestic US politics, Yang said it is a "mainstream consensus" among Democrats and Republicans to "further grow the relationship with China."
Recently, McCain has measured his comments on China, criticizing its pollution and efforts on climate change.
He also has taken a tough line, saying the US "must take note" of China's "warlike rhetoric" toward US ally Taiwan.
China's close economic and diplomatic relations with "pariah states" such as Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe will result in tensions, McCain wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS