Kamala Harris’s keynote handle to US Democrats on Thursday night time had an viewers removed from the conference corridor in Chicago: policymakers in Beijing.
For China’s leaders, who have been making ready for what they noticed as an unpalatable selection between two recognized hawks in incumbent Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump, Harris’s sudden elevation final month added extra uncertainty to what was already an important election for US-China relations.
President Xi Jinping’s administration will likely be parsing the vice-president’s statements and document for clues of what a Harris administration’s stance can be in direction of relations with Beijing — and whether or not it might be preferable to a second Trump time period.
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“Trump and Kamala Harris are two bowls of poison for Beijing,” stated Zhao Minghao, a professor of the Institute of Worldwide Research and Middle for American Research at Fudan College. “Each see China as a competitor and even an adversary.”
Whereas Harris co-sponsored payments when she was a senator defending human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the north-western area the place Beijing has detained almost 1mn primarily Uyghur Muslim minorities, Trump launched the commerce warfare, and has pledged higher tariffs on Chinese language items if he wins once more.
Harris talked about China simply as soon as in her speech to the Democratic conference, vowing to make sure “that America — not China — wins the competitors for the twenty first century”.
Trump, against this, referred to China 14 instances on the Republican Nationwide Conference final month, together with boasting that he had saved Beijing “at bay” throughout his presidency and bemoaning the lack of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which he claimed was “one hour away from the place China makes their nuclear weapons”, an implicit menace.
“Folks know quite a bit about Trump, about how he intends to manipulate if elected,” stated Thomas Qitong Cao, assistant professor at Tufts College’s Fletcher College of worldwide affairs. “Whereas for Harris, there’s nonetheless lots of thriller.”
Earlier than turning into vice-president, Harris — who has by no means been to China — had comparatively little publicity to overseas affairs. Since taking workplace, she has travelled abroad 17 instances, together with making 4 visits to east Asia, the place she briefly met Xi in Thailand in 2022 and rubbed shoulders together with his quantity two, premier Li Qiang, in Jakarta final yr.
Most Chinese language teachers stated that extra necessary than Harris’s document within the much less highly effective place of vice-president was whether or not she would retain members of Biden’s overseas coverage group, reminiscent of secretary of state Antony Blinken, his deputy Kurt Campbell and nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan, in addition to different senior officers who’ve been instrumental to hawkish insurance policies on China.
Uncertainty over her group has left not solely Beijing however even consultants in Washington speeding to work out who she would choose for necessary positions on the area, notably China. Her nationwide safety adviser as vice-president, Philip Gordon, is not an Asia expert.
“What actually issues is who she trusts as a result of she will not be an knowledgeable on overseas affairs,” stated Wang Chong, a overseas coverage knowledgeable at Zhejiang Worldwide Research College, who added that Harris’s nomination got here as a “shock” for a lot of in China.
Her working mate, Tim Walz, had the potential to carry a extra private contact to bilateral relations, some Chinese language analysts stated. Whereas Walz, who first visited China a long time in the past as a younger instructor, has been sharply important of the Chinese language Communist occasion, he’s remembered fondly by these he interacted with within the nation.
Walz has also met the Dalai Lama, whose assembly final week with US officers sparked anger from Beijing.
“His private qualities made me really feel that the surface world was pleasant,” stated Christy Dai, considered one of his former college students at Foshan No 1 Excessive College, the place Walz taught in 1989. “If there’s a world chief like him”, worldwide affairs might transfer within the “proper route”, she advised the Monetary Occasions.
However “simply because an individual is aware of about China, that doesn’t imply they help China”, Wang stated.
Whereas Biden has rallied US allies to impose export controls on superior know-how and elements to China and deepen safety co-operation within the area, his officers have additionally tried to foster communication with Beijing.
“Biden’s officers have been emphasising that the US doesn’t need decoupling, they need de-risking,” Fudan’s Zhao stated, including that the softer tone was in response to stress from enterprise to de-escalate tensions and confirmed that Democrats have been in a position to “take heed to society”.
He advised there can be extra continuity and predictability from a Harris presidency than “Trump 2.0”.
Chinese language policymakers concern {that a} Trump administration, somewhat than pursuing a coverage of “managing competitors”, would search “victory” in a brand new chilly warfare whose final purpose many analysts suspect is regime change. For the Communist occasion, this might be an existential menace.
“China can solely and can solely want the lesser of two evils elected,” stated Shi Yinhong, professor of worldwide relations at Renmin College in Beijing.
Some analysts argue that one other Trump presidency would profit China by sowing home chaos within the US and upending Washington’s overseas alliances and commerce partnerships. Trump’s heat in direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin would additionally blunt western efforts to place stress on Beijing over its tacit help for Moscow’s warfare in Ukraine.
However Shi cautioned towards such hopes. Throughout his first time period, Trump revived the Quad alliance with Japan, Australia and India, enacted the Taiwan Journey Act permitting high-level officers from every nation to go to and initiated commerce hostilities towards China.
Others pointed to Trump’s antagonism in direction of Beijing over the Covid-19 pandemic, which he labelled the “China virus”.
“From March 2020, he turned hysterical in direction of China,” Shi stated.
Harris, he added, “doesn’t make overthrowing the Chinese language authorities an open, programmatic purpose, and has a lot better coverage predictability than Trump”.
