Head to head: What the US election means for China
- By Corey Cooper
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 9, 2012
As the fervor over US President Barack Obama's Nov. 6 re-election victory subsides, China watchers are now trying to decide what four more years of Obama and his administration will mean for US-China relations, especially as China transitions into a new generation of leadership.
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US President Barack Obama and his family [File Photo] |
Obama, the Democratic incumbent, overcame Republican challenger Mitt Romney with a decisive 303-to-206 victory in the Electoral College, earning an election majority with over 50 percent of the popular vote. Following an exceptionally tight race in which polls showed a near tie between Obama and Romney in the final weeks, Obama carried seven of eight critical swing states, including the highly contested state of Ohio, to push himself over the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win the presidency.
In his acceptance speech in the early morning on Nov. 7, Obama emphasized that America's spirit of inclusiveness would triumph over the bitter divisiveness of its political battles.
"I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states," Obama told an ecstatic group of 10,000 supporters near his campaign headquarters in Chicago.
But back in China, analysts are seeing the Obama win as a sign of a continued rehash of the US foreign policy towards China that prevailed during the president's first term, most notably in terms of security issues along the Pacific Rim.
Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University and political columnist for China.org.cn, said Obama's re-election presents both "opportunity and challenge" for US-China relations, but expressed doubt that the status quo would change during the president's second term.
"Obama has been predictably bad for China," Shen said. "He sold two batches of weapons to Taiwan. He also met with the Dalai Lama two times in his first term. His secretary of defense pointed out that the US-Japan alliance applies to the Diaoyu Islands. These issues hurt China seriously."
Of concern to many China watchers following the US election was Romney's comment that he would label China as a currency manipulator "on day one" of his presidency, which pundits on both sides have labeled as a major shift which could have potentially ignited a trade war.
John Ross, visiting professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University and China.org.cn's economic columnist, agreed that Romney engaged in more China bashing than Obama did during the campaign, but argued that it only had a minimal effect on the perceived China policy of a Romney presidency and its outcome on the election.
"It is true that Romney engaged in more anti-China rhetoric than Obama and this failed to win him the presidency. I don't think it was the main issue in the election; obviously, the economic situation in the US was the main issue," Ross said. "My fundamental view is that the US's foreign policy towards China would remain basically the same, whoever was elected president."
Politically speaking, Obama was smart not to fall into Romney's trap on the China currency issue, Shen said, but he argued that Obama's silence on the issue suits US interests more than it helps China-US relations.
"To point out that China is manipulating [its currency], the US would lose more rather than win more," Shen said. "Despite the fact that China has manipulated [its currency], the US has benefited more by this than [it would have] otherwise."
In the campaign, both candidates emphasized the need for more US activism to punish China for its alleged unfair trade practices. Romney and his running mate Congressman Paul Ryan criticized Obama for not doing enough to protect American intellectual property rights overseas. Obama cited his administration's WTO cases, where it charged China with unfairly subsidizing exports of cars, auto parts and solar panels, as evidence that it had been tough on China in order to protect American jobs.
Shen and Ross agreed, however, that any such protectionist measure taken by the US have had a minimal effect on US-China trade as a whole.
"The percentage of Chinese exports affected by sanctions only reaches two percent of China's exports. Two percent is nothing," Shen said.
"There are great rows going around on these individual issues like tires or solar panels. But the general trend of world trade continues to be upwards. Actually protectionism in the US is rather weak," Ross said.
Instead, analysts have pointed to geopolitical security decisions made by the US as having a much greater impact on China.
Shen said that while Romney's tone towards China was more antagonistic than Obama in the campaign, the Republican might have been more constructive on security issues had he defeated Obama.
"Romney might not have been necessarily worse than Obama," Shen said. "On security issues —Taiwan, Tibet, the Diaoyu Islands and the South China Sea, I think Republicans would have more cooperation with China than Obama."
The big change, and indeed challenge in US foreign policy towards China is not economic policy, but rather the US's pivot to the Pacific, Ross said.
"I don't think Obama wants a military conflict with China – he wants to try to build a series of anti-China political and military lines in the Pacific. The big danger is, which I think even the US is slightly alarmed by, is that some extremist forces think that they have a mandate from the US to do things which greatly strengthen conflict with China," Ross said.
However, when the time comes for action as opposed to mere rhetoric, Ross said that the core interests of the United States and its people, namely economic stability and jobs, would drive US policy decisions.
"The US has been the world's largest economy since about 1870. For this to be overtaken is a very fundamental turn in world history. The problem of course for the US is that's a very big psychological change. This can lead to irresponsible and demagogic forces inside the US doing dangerous things," Ross said.
"Whether the [US-China] relationship is cooperative or conflicting depends on where your starting point is – how to achieve prosperity for the US people, in which case the relationship is cooperative, or how to prevent China from becoming the largest economy in the world, with all the other consequences that will flow from that, in which case it's conflicting," he said.
Although he agreed that the US and China were moving forward in terms of economic cooperation, Shen warned that hotspots such as the Diaoyu Islands could destabilize US-China relations during Obama's second term if the US's support for Japan on the issue remains firm.
"If China wants to improve its relationship with the US and Obama's administration, then it will make more reconciliatory actions. But if China adheres to its own views that historically, this place belongs to China, I would dare to venture that [there will be] a conflict and China-US relations will be worse," he said.
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