Trump re-ups China bashing rhetoric for GOP primary run

What's next in U.S.-China relations.

Nov 17, 2022 View in browser   By Phelim Kine Susan Walsh/AP Photo Hi, China Watchers. This week we gauge the potential impact of Donald Trump's visceral anti-China rhetoric on his presidential campaign and distill the fruits of President Joe Biden's week of intensive summit diplomacy. We'll also give an update on China's "dynamic zero-Covid" strategy agonies and profile a book that warns of the rising risk of U.S.-China military conflict in the Indo-Pacific. And a question for you, fellow China Watchers: Did Biden consciously seize early advantage in his meeting with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping by grabbing Xi's preferred handshake photo op position ? Email your views to pkine@politico.com ! Let's get to it. — Phelim Donald Trump launched his GOP presidential bid on Tuesday and made clear that he sees fresh political capital in vilifying China. In a rambling, hour-long declaration speech Trump used the phrasing "the China virus," to refer to Covid-19 and said U.S. energy supply challenges meant that China is "watching us die and they're laughing as it happens." He also accused the Chinese government of playing "a very active role in the 2020 election," an implicit reference to his allegations during the campaign that China unlawfully influenced the election in favor of President JOE BIDEN. That rhetoric suggests that Trump will seek to weaponize growing American public concern about China's potential threat to U.S. national security as a key electoral plank in his campaign to be the GOP presidential candidate in 2024. "China is foundational to Trump's brand," said BRYAN LANZA , a GOP political strategist at Mercury Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. "I wouldn't be surprised if Trump establishes some tough positions on China in the campaign, that Joe Biden will parrot … [because] China's top of mind for every American, especially coming out of Covid." While Biden has also called China a national security threat, he is unlikely to try to match any inflammatory anti-China rhetoric that Trump may roll out over the course of a possible future presidential campaign. Biden has consistently underscored his administration's goal of maintaining a workable, if not cordial, bilateral relationship with China. "I'm not looking for conflict, I'm looking to manage this competition responsibly," Biden said after his meeting with Chinese President XI JINPING in Bali, Indonesia on Monday. Negative public perceptions of China have grown in the U.S. over the past decade due to dismay over the Chinese government's predatory trade practices , rampant espionage targeting the U.S. high tech sector and its escalating military intimidation of Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson MAO NING declined to comment on Trump's candidacy. "This is the U.S.'s internal affair," Mao said Wednesday . Trump's electoral advantage — particularly with the GOP — is that he made hostility to China key to his political brand before such posturing became mainstream. Trump's hostility to China — reviling Beijing for practices that he said had harmed American workers — was a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential election campaign. That included his assertion that U.S.-China trade policies had allowed Beijing " to rape our country ." "He was wise to get ahead of that curve and now that we're talking about potential military action [over Taiwan], it makes it all real" for voters, said GOP political strategist ALICE STEWART. Trump's condemnation of China is fast becoming a national political campaign template. A new electoral purity test – who hates China the most – defined GOP senate primary races in Missouri and Pennsylvania this year. And Rep. TIM RYAN (D-Ohio) tested the political value of China bashing in his primary race earlier this year by tweeting a 60 second video that name-checked China eight times as the source of Ohio's economic woes. Rep. MICHELLE STEEL (R-Calif.) accused her Democratic party rival, JAY CHEN, of Chinese communist sympathies in a tightly-fought congressional race. Chen fought back by questioning Steel's loyalty for her opposition to the China-countering CHIPS Act . Steel won the race on Tuesday . And former Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO launched a series of short YouTube videos in September critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in what may be a warm up to his own declaration of a GOP presidential primary bid. Trump's assertion of China's danger to America "absolutely still has currency," said Democratic political strategist JACK O'DONNELL, managing partner of O'Donnell & Associates. "It resonates especially with working class people — Latinos, African Americans — the folks who are striving and working hard who really feel that [economic] threat." But many lawmakers are also concerned that Trump's return may empower racist violence against their Asian American and Pacific islander constituents. "I urge my Republican colleagues to learn from [Trump's] misguided efforts and refrain from using the kind of dangerous rhetoric that we know puts Asian Americans in danger," said Rep. JUDY CHU (D-Calif), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. An analysis in the American Journal of Public Health in March 2021 linked Trump's repeated tweeting of the phrase "Chinese virus" in 2020 and 2021 to a surge in anti-Asian racist language on social media platforms, including Twitter. Political strategists say that the lesson of Trump's political career is to expect the unexpected. "At this point we'll take everything Trump says with a grain of salt and assume he's really not working off a plan or a platform, just some instincts and biases and crowd reaction that will shape what Trump says more than any sort of policy deliberation or traditional platform construction," said ED ROGERS, GOP political strategist and former staffer in the RONALD REAGAN and GEORGE H.W. BUSH administrations. Biden-Xi meeting, and summit diplomacy week President Joe Biden made good on administration officials' predictions that his meeting on Monday with China's paramount leader Xi Jinping would produce little in the way of concrete "deliverables." The long-anticipated three and a half hour meeting between the two leaders — which Biden said included "blunt" exchanges — produced familiar language from both sides on the most vexing bilateral issues: Taiwan, trade, and human rights. Biden spoke of his hope that the two countries could avoid slipping into a new Cold War while Xi expressed his desire to "put the relationship on the right course." The two leaders expressed hope that the meeting may produce momentum toward less fractious ties. Biden will send Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN to Beijing in the New Year to continue the high-level dialogue with Chinese officials. Xi spoke of "dialogue and cooperation in public health, agriculture and food security." But there are doubts about the utility of those initiatives. "When Xi Jinping says that the U.S. and China should be working together, he means, 'Correct your faulty view of China and stop interfering in our internal affairs' and there's nothing that we know has been said that changes any of that," said ROBERT DALY, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center. The assessment by some GOP lawmakers of the value of Biden's encounter with Xi was more pointed. "This meeting should have held the CCP accountable for its rampant human rights abuses, ongoing theft of American intellectual property, and its refusal to investigate the origins of COVID-19," Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) said in a statement on Monday . You can read POLITICO's full story on the Biden-Xi meeting here . Biden's chat with Xi followed his attendance at the U.N. COP27 climate talks in Egypt on Friday and his twin U.S.-ASEAN/East Asia Summit appearances in Cambodia. Biden emerged from COP vowing that the U.S. would meet its carbon emission reduction pledges aimed to keep global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. And he promised to "support the most vulnerable countries in building resilience to climate impacts" — that he backed with funding that included a pledge of $150 million to support such efforts in Africa. Biden's presence at COP allowed him to pull off "a half-day advertisement for U.S. climate leadership," said COP attendee SCOTT MOORE, director of China programs and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. "President Biden was the only top leader from a big emitter nation to show up…[and] just blew everyone else out of the water, including China, in terms of perception and public diplomacy," Moore told China Watcher. Xi also passed on the East Asian Summit, giving Biden a boost there. The results of the midterm elections also delivered Biden a win. Asian leaders "observe U.S. domestic politics, so Biden was in a strengthened position. … and [Xi's absence] certainly would not have been appreciated," said PIPER CAMPBELL, former head of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Biden's most notable achievement at the East Asia Summit was cajoling Japanese Prime Minister FUMIO KISHIDA and South Korean President YOON SUK-YEOL into a joint statement that implicitly challenged China's expansive territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific. The three leaders affirmed their opposition to "unilateral attempts to change the status quo in waters of the Indo-Pacific" and reiterated "the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson MAO NING reacted to the statement on Monday by urging the three countries to "abandon the Cold War mentality." TRANSLATING WASHINGTON — GOP HOUSE WIN GUARANTEES CHINA SCRUTINY: The confirmation of the GOP's victory in the House on Wednesday paves the way for Republican-led key committees to pursue a much more aggressive focus on China in January. That will include House-led hearings focused on China and investigations of everything from China's intentions on the dark side of the moon and the contents of HUNTER BIDEN's laptop to TikTok's potential data security threat. Read my full story here . — FBI CHIEF FLAGS TIKTOK SECURITY RISK: Federal Bureau of Investigation director CHRISTOPHER WRAY has warned that the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform poses national security risks. "The Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users. Or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose," Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday . Mao at China's Foreign Ministry accused Wray of "spreading disinformation … to hobble Chinese companies."  — WRONGED SCIENTIST REAPS $2 MILLION PAYOUT: The Commerce Department agreed last week to pay nearly $2 million to former National Weather Service scientist SHERRY CHEN for wrongful dismissal and prosecution. The FBI accused Chen of spying for China in 2014, then dropped all charges five months later without explanation. "Yet another Chinese American who was targeted because of their race," said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif), in a statement on Monday . — CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSIONS URGE ACTION ON CHINA: Congress's two China-specific commissions released reports this week that warned of a growing threat posed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to national security and human rights. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's 2022 annual report released Tuesday warned of a "gap between America's growing recognition of the challenges China presents and our responses to date in dealing with them." The Congressional Executive Commission on China released its 2022 annual report on Wednesday that included an assessment of worsening human rights abuses under Xi Jinping. CECC co-chair JIM MCGOVERN (D-Mass) urged fellow lawmakers to "hold the Chinese government accountable" for those violations. Hot from the China Watchersphere Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, left, meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. Albanese met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first face-to-face talk between the nations' leaders in five years. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP) | Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP  — XI, ALBANESE TALK TENSION REDUCTION: Australian Prime Minister ANTHONY ALBANESE and President Xi claimed progress in improving toxic bilateral relations after a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20. "In the past few years the China-Australia relationship has had some difficulties," Xi said in remarks prior to his 30-minute meeting with Albanese on Tuesday. "This is something we would not like to see." China has subjected Australia to a campaign of economic coercion that has restricted imports of Australian items including wine, seafood and barley since 2020 after Canberra called for an independent probe into the origins of Covid-19. "I think both countries took an important step to moving forward," Albanese said of the meeting .  — KISHIDA: CHINA IS VIOLATING JAPAN'S SOVEREIGNTY: Japanese Prime Minister FUMIO KISHIDA will have a chance to raise his concerns about China's territorial ambitions directly with Xi Jinping when the two leaders meet today on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok, Thailand. Kishida has complained that Chinese naval forces are routinely infringing on Japan's territorial integrity. "There has been continued, increasing actions by China in the East China Sea that violate Japan's sovereignty," Kishida said during the East Asian Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Sunday .  — HK PROTEST SONG ROILS RUGBY TOURNAMENT: Politics upended the showdown between the Hong Kong and South Korean Rugby 7's teams on Sunday when organizers played a Hong Kong pro-democracy anthem rather than the territory's official anthem. The organizer, Asia Rugby, apologized on Monday and blamed "simple human error." That's not good enough for Hong Kong Chief Secretary who told the South Korean Consul General on Monday that he " strongly deplores " the incident and vowed a police investigation.  TRANSLATING CHINA Visitors get screened by a security guard at an entrance to Peking University in Beijing on Nov. 16, 2022. | Ng Han Guan/AP Photo — CHINA'S  'ZERO-COVID' EASING PLEASES NOBODY: The Chinese government last week announced a slight easing in its dynamic zero-Covid policy , which has become synonymous with lengthy lockdowns of residential areas and industrial complexes. The new measures included a reduction in the mandatory quarantine time for inbound travelers from overseas to five days from seven. And China ended the "circuit-breaker" rule which imposed lengthy flight suspensions on airlines whose passengers test positive for Covid upon arrival in China. The news prompted online searches for China-bound flights to more than double in the U.S., Australia and Japan between Friday and Sunday on the online travel platform Trip.com. But hopes that the Chinese government is moving toward aligning its Covid control mechanisms with more lenient international standards anytime soon are likely misplaced. The daunting bureaucratic hurdles and pre-flight testing regime for U.S. travelers headed to China persist. And China's Foreign Ministry insists zero-Covid is here to stay. The relaxation in Covid rules "certainly does not mean we can slacken in our response or even simply end Covid restrictions and lie flat," said the ministry's Zhao last week . A total of 28 cities with a combined population of more than 200 million people were under Covid lockdown at the end of October . Meanwhile public fatigue with almost three years of the zero-Covid policy has curdled into violent defiance in some areas. The BBC carried startling images on Tuesday of hundreds of locked-down residents of the southern city of Guangzhou trying to forcibly remove barriers erected by Covid control authorities and attacking police vehicles. HEADLINES Wall Street Journal: " Dozens of Americans Are Barred From Leaving China, Adding to Tensions " CNN: " Hong Kong jails woman for insulting China's national anthem during Olympic celebration " Newsweek: " Lip Reader Decodes Hu Jintao's Dramatic Exit From China's Party Congress " HEADS UP  — V.P. HARRIS IS THAILAND, PHILIPPINES-BOUND: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS picks up the baton of high-level U.S. government engagement in Asia from President Biden by flying to Thailand to attend the 29th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting this weekend. There she'll rub elbows with Xi Jinping (no bilateral is planned) and on Friday "lay out our administration's comprehensive economic agenda for the Indo-Pacific," a senior administration official told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday . After APEC, Harris will travel to the Philippines where her agenda includes a trip on Tuesday to the city of Puerto Princesa on the Island of Palawan. That's on the front line of Chinese maritime challenges to Philippine sovereignty in the region. The State Department deemed China's territorial claims in the region as "unlawful" in a study published in January. Harris' visit to the city underscores the administration's support for the Philippines' efforts to maintain the integrity of their maritime borders, the senior administration official said. One Book, Three Questions The Naval Institute Press  The Book: Fire on the Water: China, America and the Future of the Pacific (Second Edition)  The Author: ROBERT HADDICK was a contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida and is a visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Air and Space Forces Association. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. What is the most important takeaway from your book? Conventional military deterrence in the western Pacific is rapidly eroding and the 2020s will be a decade of high danger of military conflict against China's People's Liberation Army. The cause of this breakdown is not just the PLA's rapid expansion — the fastest such peacetime military buildup since Germany's in the 1930s. More disturbing and equally consequential has been Washington's long complacency about the changing military balance in the Indo-Pacific and the Pentagon's unwillingness to reckon with the military technology the PLA has now deployed against U.S. forces in the region. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book? How little civilian control and supervision exists over the U.S. armed services in the areas including budgeting, procurement decisions and integrated military strategy. Since the end of the Cold War, the military services have largely perpetuated their long-standing methods, organizations and cultures even as rapidly advancing military technology has made many of these legacy concepts obsolete. Post-Cold War senior civilian policymakers largely allowed the services to supervise themselves instead of compelling them to reform.  What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations? The erosion of conventional military deterrence is very damaging for U.S.-Chinese relations. The more China's leaders believe they have realistic military options, the more unstable the relationship will become. The aim of restoring and sustaining conventional military deterrence, which the United States and its allies can achieve over the long run and at a reasonable cost, is to convince China's leaders that they do not possess feasible military options concerning Taiwan or other disputes in the region. U.S., allied and Chinese leaders can then make progress on the long agenda of global and regional problems they face. Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com. Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Matt Kaminski, Jonathan Lemire and digital producer Andrew Howard. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week's items? Email us at chinawatcher@politico.com. CORRECTION: Last week's newsletter misstated Judith Shapiro's name.   Follow us

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