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China quandary will confront next president
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Obama said last April that if the Chinese do not help stop the violence in Darfur and respect Tibetan rights, President Bush should boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing this summer.
McCain said that if Beijing did not cease its repression of Tibetans and of political dissidents, he would not attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics this summer and he urged Bush to rethink his decision to do so.
McCain has also warned of the Beijing regime’s military buildup. “When China builds new submarines, adds hundreds of new jet fighters, modernizes its arsenal of strategic ballistic missiles, and tests anti-satellite weapons, the United States legitimately must question the intent of such provocative acts,” he said last year.
He also criticized China’s cozy relations with what he called “pariah states such as Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.”
Unanswered questions
Would Obama really start shutting off Chinese access to its American customers? If so, how would that action not be in violation of World Trade Organization rules? How would China retaliate if he did so?
What can McCain do about China’s military strength, apart from voicing worry about it? Will such fretting cause China’s leaders to think of the U.S. as a “paper tiger,” a loud critic who can’t back up its words with actions?
Evolution and shifts in position
Both McCain and Obama have been fairly consistent in their views on China.
How they have voted
In 2005, McCain voted to table (that is, kill) an amendment offered by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., that would have imposed a 27.5 percent tax on imported goods from China, as a way of punishing China for its alleged manipulation of its currency in order to boost Chinese exports.
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In 1999, McCain voted for the landmark bill to give permanent nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations treatment) to China. Enactment of this bill helped greatly expand American trade with China.
McCain voted against amendments proposed by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D- Minn., and Sen. Jesse Helms, R- N.C. that would have blocked normal trade relations until the Beijing government stopped its use of “reeducation through labor” camps to imprison political dissidents and released Chinese Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims whom Beijing had imprisoned because they openly practiced or professed their faith.
Surprises for the new president
Charles Freeman, the former chief China trade negotiator for the United States, said, “All you would need is a slight downturn in the Chinese economy" to cause a significant strain in U.S.-China relations.
The Chinese economy, he notes, "has run at about 10 percent growth a year. They need to find jobs for 50,000 people a day just to keep ahead of the game. Say they dropped to 7.5 percent growth, the number of unemployed people starts adding up pretty quick.”
Freeman, who's now the chair of Chinese studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, explained, “Almost certainly the downturn would come as a result of global circumstances, including a downturn in the number of exports to the United States."
He said, "What the Chinese government would almost certainly do is to find some outside actor to blame rather than have the Chinese population say, ‘It’s our stupid government.’ So almost certainly they would try to inflame Chinese nationalism. That would create challenges for the United States in dealing with an angry China.”
If the new president was “looking to try to stimulate China’s help on North Korea or Iran or whatever it might be, that could be a real problem.”
“Is that likely to happen? No, but it is certainly out there. If you’ve been averaging ten percent growth for years, there is a point at which what goes up must come down.”
Another risk is a flare-up of tension over Taiwan, Freeman said.
“Things are looking good right now, but if the rapprochement between Beijing and Taipei doesn’t produce the benefits that people on both sides of the Straits are hoping for, you could run into confrontation pretty easily. And that would bring the United States in by default.”
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