As far as China is concerned, the historic presidential showdown between incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was both surprising and unsurprising. Unsurprisingly, China was not mentioned much in a debate that traditionally—and in accordance with the American voting pattern—focuses on domestic issues. But surprisingly, and despite the discourse surrounding China and its threats to Taiwan, Beijing was mentioned almost exclusively in an economic context and not a political-security one.
As expected, the contestant who mentioned China by name in all cases, except for one, is former President Trump who spoke about the 10% protective tariffs that he wishes to levy on all goods entering the United States, in order to make countries, including China, pay sums that will reduce the American deficit. Biden, for his part, attacked Trump and said that he did not achieve any progress on the issue with China during his tenure, while Trump chose to return to the issue in his concluding statement and contradict Biden’s claim of the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010 and said that today the deficit with China is actually the largest.
Trump referred almost absent-mindedly to China from a political perspective when he said that now, under the Biden administration, the leaders of the US rivals—Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, Xi of China, and Putin of Russia—no longer respect the Western power. This lack of respect, he claimed, could ignite a third world war and could actually lead to economic cooperation between China and Iran, which would stop and isolate Iran if the United States would refuse to do business with any country, including China, that maintains economic relations with Iran.
The almost complete disregard of China by the two presidents on a stage where they are only interested in talking about their achievements, may indicate a lack of positive progress on the issue, especially given the growing tensions in the South China Sea and between China and Taiwan and China and the Philippines. But it also shows the large gap between American policy makers and their interest in China and in its military capabilities and that of the public, which focuses mainly on the economic issue, a framing that was used by the two presidents in the debate.
As far as China is concerned, the historic presidential showdown between incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was both surprising and unsurprising. Unsurprisingly, China was not mentioned much in a debate that traditionally—and in accordance with the American voting pattern—focuses on domestic issues. But surprisingly, and despite the discourse surrounding China and its threats to Taiwan, Beijing was mentioned almost exclusively in an economic context and not a political-security one.
As expected, the contestant who mentioned China by name in all cases, except for one, is former President Trump who spoke about the 10% protective tariffs that he wishes to levy on all goods entering the United States, in order to make countries, including China, pay sums that will reduce the American deficit. Biden, for his part, attacked Trump and said that he did not achieve any progress on the issue with China during his tenure, while Trump chose to return to the issue in his concluding statement and contradict Biden’s claim of the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010 and said that today the deficit with China is actually the largest.
Trump referred almost absent-mindedly to China from a political perspective when he said that now, under the Biden administration, the leaders of the US rivals—Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, Xi of China, and Putin of Russia—no longer respect the Western power. This lack of respect, he claimed, could ignite a third world war and could actually lead to economic cooperation between China and Iran, which would stop and isolate Iran if the United States would refuse to do business with any country, including China, that maintains economic relations with Iran.
The almost complete disregard of China by the two presidents on a stage where they are only interested in talking about their achievements, may indicate a lack of positive progress on the issue, especially given the growing tensions in the South China Sea and between China and Taiwan and China and the Philippines. But it also shows the large gap between American policy makers and their interest in China and in its military capabilities and that of the public, which focuses mainly on the economic issue, a framing that was used by the two presidents in the debate.