Donald Trump made an allusion to China 14 days during his speech at the Republican National Convention in July 2024. In a 92-minute target, the former senator recycled his frequently criticized name” China virus” for the Covid-19 pandemic, said China was stealing auto jobs, and touted how his administration had China hit on numerous fronts.
China even made it into the Democratic National Convention’s 2024 address list. President Joe Biden stated on the first day that” the conventional wisdom was that China would unavoidably surpass the United States” when he first assumed company.
” No one is saying that today”, he added.
On the last night, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris reaffirmed this sentiment, saying that if elected, she would maintain that” America, never China, wins the contest for the 21st century.”
As a specialist on China’s representation in US politics and culture, I do n’t think the fact that China is edging into the country’s election rhetoric is surprising, nor do the Democratic and Republican ticket, respectively, show an imbalance in emphasis.
Tried and proven electoral strategy
The Political candidates have reportedly had fewer references to China on the campaign trail since Biden’s return from the competition, in contrast to their Democratic counterparts.
Trump and his Republican supporters have frequently used China to bolster their anti-Communist agendas and undermine their” America first” certifications.
For Trump, specifically, it is a tried and tested political strategy. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump invoked China so often that The Huffington Post produced a hybrid picture of the applicant repeating” China” 234 days.
This has continued into the upcoming election pattern.
Aside from the numerous mentions in Trump and others ‘ statements, the , 2024 GOP platform , emphasizes” Secure Strategic Independence from China” as a vital responsibility, through limiting trade and investment and” ignoring China” to “return Peace through Strength”. In contrast, the standard Republican system did not mention another alleged enemies, such as Russia and Iran.
However, Project 2025 – the liberal Heritage Foundation’s policy program usually associated with Trump, although his campaign denies the relationship – mentions China not fewer than 483 times in a 922-page file. The program’s official website also highlights the purpose to “take on China” on the” About” site.
Neither “dragon killer” nor “panda hugger” are true.
Hence, it was not surprising that Trump-supporting US media outlets picked up on the news that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, had formerly taught in China and traveled there on his honeymoon 30 times, according to estimates.
Traditional observers portrayed Walz as a” Communist” who would bring “very happy” Communist China, despite Walz’s claim that he is “neither a “dragon killer” nor a “panda hug” when it came to China. Walz’s connections to China actually led to an FBI background check, according to Fox News host Jesse Watters.
On August 16, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee head, Republican James Comer, opened an exploration into Walz’s “longstanding links” to China.
The Great Walz of China? Almost
Walz’s wife Gwen Walz and his wife Educational Travel Adventures, which some Republicans find to be cautious, were the two businesses ‘ ties that some Republicans found to be cautious.
Individuals from small-town America who were enrolled in the organization’s organization were able to learn about the government’s history and culture there. Walz even served on the individual rights-monitoring Congressional-Executive Commission on China during his time as a House agent.
Walz has acknowledged that the partnership between the US and China does not need to be hostile, and there can be “many areas of assistance,” despite constantly criticizing the Chinese government.
Despite his extensive China-related experiences, the Democratic vice presidential nominee has yet to mention China during major campaign speeches – China did n’t make it into his party convention address, unlike the speeches of Harris, Trump and Walz’s rival for vice president, JD Vance.
Additionally, Jon Huntsman, a former Republican presidential candidate who served as an ambassador to China and speaks fluent Chinese ,’s evident reluctance to emphasize his knowledge of China contrasts with Walz’s behavior.
Huntsman consistently demonstrated his ability to speak Chinese during his plan in 2011, which was undoubtedly a different day in US-China relationships, and he was frequently applauded for doing so.
Harris ‘ great leap forward, no again
One factor that contributes to the change in focus on China between the two national candidates is, in my opinion, the unique way the election is framed.
The future vote is about movement, according to the Democrats; they are predicting that voters will choose to go back or forward. The United States and its citizens are marching toward a future of unity, promises, and prospect, which, in their opinion, leaves behind the conflict, section, and suppression of the past, according to tags like Harris ‘” we’re not going up.”
In this context, Harris ‘ mentions of China as a threat are primarily focused on the area of high-tech competition, with a focus on the potential for space and artificial intelligence.
In contrast, the Republican campaign is more focused on defending an imagined Americanism from foreign forces, which is why you hear more from Trump and Vance about the frequently dramatized “invasion” of immigrants who illegally cross the border and “bring” drugs and crimes.
The same logic, I would argue, informs the GOP’s frequent invocation of China as a geopolitical and economic threat.
After all, Trump has long attributed a great number of actions to the Chinese government, from calling it a creator of the” Wuhan virus” to blaming it for producing the “hoax” of climate change.
In his convention speech, Vance linked China directly to the illegal cross-border drug trade. He also claimed that Harris used tax dollars to pay” the Chinese Communist Party to build factories on American soil” at a rally in Michigan on August 27 despite the fact that the Republican-led legislature had developed the program.
This characterization of China fits what I called the “racialization” of the Chinese state in my book” Disorienting Politics“. The rhetoric portrays China as a powerful force that commits heinous deeds against America.
Make China your center of gravity.
Over the past two decades, parts of the American media have conflated China’s Communist Party rule with fascism and totalitarianism.
A rise in reported anti-Asian racist attacks resulted from that rhetoric in the US over the” Chinese virus” during the pandemic, demonstrating how manufactured fear of a distant country like China can also breed hatred toward those who are thought to have come from that country.
In this regard, Walz’s hesitation to invoke China may be related to a desire to oversimplify the country’s complex society. The former social studies teacher said in 1991, in conversation with a local newspaper, that the best way to learn about people is to hear them describe their lives.
The threat of China is likely to make an appearance as more urgent geopolitical conflicts continue to dominate the news cycle as the election season progresses.
After all, even one of Walz’s former students, a self-described “dormant Republican” trying to defend Walz from Republican attacks on his character, still advised the Trump campaign to concentrate on policy and “make it about China.”
Fan Yang is professor of media and communication studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.