With domestic hot-button issues dominating the final week of the U.S. presidential campaign, any mention of the U.S.-China competition by candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has been through the lens of domestic concerns, analysts say.
“American voters are more concerned about domestic issues. Polls show that the so-called China threat ranks behind the economy, immigration, abortion, climate, democracy and other issues for voters,” said Liu Yawei, director of the Carter Center's China Program.
According to a survey released by YouGov, a U.S. polling organization, only a minority of voters listed U.S. foreign policy as one of the top three issues for them. The survey found Trump’s supporters cared slightly more about foreign policy than Harris’ supporters.
China and domestic policies
Any mention of China has largely been in the context of domestic issues.
In an October 27 rally in New York City, Trump mentioned China twice, saying that if the United States and China were to go to war, the U.S. would “beat them,” and that he would “pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, meaning if China or any other country charges us a 100 or 200 percent tax or tariff, we [the United States] will then charge them a 100 or 200 percent tax or tariff.”
Harris made no mention of China during a rally on the same day in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
Trump has focused on the potential economic effects of competition with China as it relates to American jobs, highlighting trade concerns, flooding of goods, and unfair business practices.
At a September rally in the auto-manufacturing hub of Flint, Michigan, Trump warned about the consequences if he was not elected.
“You will not have any manufacturing plants. China is going to take over all of your business because of the electric car and because they have the material. We don't,” Trump said.
The auto industry and China’s role in the loss of American jobs were also topics that Trump focused on at the Republican National Convention in July in addition to the threat Beijing poses to Taiwan.
At a rally in April, Trump said many migrants coming to the U.S. from China are men of “military” or “fighting” age who may be coming here to form a sort of “army.”
Trump has also mentioned China in the context of the fentanyl crisis in the U.S.
In September at a town hall with farmers in the swing-state of Pennsylvania, Trump said the first thing he would do if re-elected president would be to call China’s leader Xi Jinping and tell him to honor the trade deal the U.S. and China made when he was in office.
“Second thing I am going to do. I'm going to say [to Xi that] you have to give the death penalty to your fentanyl dealers who are sending fentanyl [to the United States] - you know in China, they give the death penalty. They don't have a drug problem because they give the death penalty," Trump said.
Although Harris has had less to say about China on the campaign trail, she mentioned China at the Democratic National Convention in August, saying she would work to ensure the United States wins the competition on being the global leader in artificial intelligence and space.
She “advocates ‘de-risking’ — reducing interdependence between the United States and China in arenas of advanced technology, principally to ensure that Washington is not assisting Beijing's military modernization — but she has warned against a tariff-centric economic policy toward China,” said Ali Wyne, a senior researcher at the International Crisis Group, as he described her policies on China..
But the two candidates and their respective political parties have more in common than differences in their rhetoric on China, said Dennis Wilder, the CIA’s former deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific and National Security Council's (NSC) director for China under President George W. Bush.
“China has not been debated in this election because the American public and political class almost universally share the same negative views of China. Polling shows favorable views of China in the U.S. in single digits."
While Washington’s policies toward Beijing can impact domestic issues such as jobs and cost of products, conflicts in other parts of the world have also overshadowed U.S. policy toward China in the eyes of many American voters, analysts said.
“Strategic competition between the United States and China is not top of mind for American voters. They are more concerned about the state of the economy and the cost of health care, said Wyne.
“And to the extent that foreign policy issues are shaping their considerations, they are understandably focused on a raging war between Russia and Ukraine and the potential for a regional war in the Middle East.”
