The US and
China are the two largest economies in the world. They have the two most
powerful militaries in the world. The US-China rivalry, in the view of many
international analysts, will be the defining global theme of the 21st Century.
But at the
moment, only one of the two major party presidential candidates is regularly
talking about US-China policy - as he has done consistently for years.
According to a
review by BBC Verify, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has
mentioned China 40 times in his five rallies since the presidential debate
earlier this month. In just one hour at a town hall forum last week in
Michigan, he brought up the country 27 times.
And when he
talks about China, Trump focuses on matters of tension between the two global
powers, painting the country and the world’s second-largest economy, as a kind
of economic predator.
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Who is ahead - Harris or
Trump?
He has talked
about the new tariffs he plans to impose on imports from Chinese companies –
and those from other nations - should he return to the White House.
He has said he
wants to prevent Chinese-made cars from being sold because he believes they
will destroy the American auto industry. He has warned China not to attempt to
replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And he has blamed the
Chinese government for the Covid pandemic.
Many
economists question the effectiveness of Trump’s tariff plans and warn that
they would ultimately be harmful to US consumers. But Trump’s message is
tailored to blue-collar voters in the key industrial Midwest battleground
states who have felt the impact of increased competition from Chinese
manufacturers.
Meanwhile, BBC
Verify finds, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris did not mention
China at all in her six rallies since the 10 September debate. Although, in a
speech on the economy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday afternoon, she
made a handful of references to the country.
“I will never
hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of
the road at the expense of our workers, communities, and companies,” she said
at that event.
Asked for
comment, an aide to the vice-president told the BBC that even if Harris does
not talk about China regularly, she has a record of working to counter what
they described as China’s efforts to undermine global stability and prosperity.
But when it
comes to discussing China, the contrast between Trump and Harris on the
campaign trail is unmistakable.
On Monday
afternoon, at a barn in Smithton, a small town in rural western Pennsylvania,
Trump sat down with a group of local farmers and ranchers for a roundtable
discussion specifically about China.
The town may
be just an hour outside of Pittsburgh, a Democratic Party urban stronghold, but
this was decidedly Republican territory. Cows grazed peacefully on grasslands
lined with dozens of “Trump for President signs”, while Trump supporters decorated
two donkeys in “Make America Great Again” gear.
The topic of
the event, hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, a conservative
think-tank, was “the Chinese Communist Party's growing threat to the US food
supply”.
The forum
ended up being a more open-ended conversation about the threat of China, full
stop. The farmers, ranchers and business executives on the panel complained
about having to compete with heavily subsidised Chinese imports and about the
low quality of Chinese goods.
While the
former president didn’t spend much time discussing the perceived dangers of
Chinese ownership of US farmland – he instead promised that he would convince
Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy more US agriculture exports – he again
emphasised that he would use tariffs to shield the American economy from China.
At one point,
he spoke of the need to protect the US steel industry - in order to prepare for
a hypothetical war with China.
“If we’re in a
war, and we need army tanks and we need ships and we need other things that
happen to be made of steel, what are we going to do, go to China and get the
steel?” he asked. “We’re fighting China, but would you mind selling us some
steel?”
Some of the
heavier lifting on China during the forum was left to Richard Grenell, a roundtable
panelist and senior advisor for the Protecting America Initiative.
He warned the
country has “quietly but strategically” worked against the US – particularly
when Americans were distracted by other global issues.
“They go after
our local and state politicians; they go after our manufacturing,” he said.
“There is no question they are looking to, at some point, leverage that
investment and activity.”
Grenell, who
served as US ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence
while Trump was in office, is considered a possible secretary of state -
America’s top diplomat - if Trump wins another term in November.
If Harris
wins, on the other hand, there may not be a significant change from the current
Biden administration, even if the current president has frequently deployed
sharper rhetoric to describe the US-China rivalry.
Since the
start of his presidency, Joe Biden has identified China as one of the
autocracies competing with the world’s leading democracies in what he describes
as a historic global inflection point.
According to
public opinion surveys, China ranks low on the list of issues American voters
care about – dwarfed by the economy, immigration and healthcare.
In a recent
National Security Action survey of voters in key electoral battleground states,
only 14% listed China as the top national security priority for the next
president. Immigration led the list at 38%, followed by the wars in Ukraine and
Gaza, both at 28%.
That could in
part explain Harris’s seeming lack of interest in talking about China as she
has sought to define herself in the eyes of voters during an abbreviated
presidential campaign, as well as Trump’s attempts to tie his China policies,
particularly tariffs, to an economic pitch.
After the
Trump event in Smithton, Bill Bretz, chair of the local county Republican Party
committee, said that while China may not be at the top of voter concerns in
Pennsylvania, it was important for Trump to talk about it.
As the largest
up-for-grabs electoral prize, Pennsylvania is perhaps the pivotal state in the
2024 presidential election. Both Trump and Harris will be hard-pressed to win
the White House without it in their column. Polls currently show the two candidates
in a dead heat there.
“The majority
of people have already picked the camp that they're in, but there are those
group of people that are undecided,” he said. “If China is a straw that sways
the scale one way or another, I think it's a great thing to bring up.”