Kamala Harris’s keynote deal with to US Democrats on Thursday evening had an viewers removed from the conference corridor in Chicago: policymakers in Beijing.
For China’s leaders, who had been getting ready for what they noticed as an unpalatable alternative between two recognized hawks in incumbent Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump, Harris’s sudden elevation final month added extra uncertainty to what was already an important election for US-China relations.
President Xi Jinping’s administration shall be now parsing the vice-president’s statements and file for clues of what a Harris administration’s stance could be in direction of relations with Beijing — and whether or not it could be preferable to a second Trump time period.
“Trump and Kamala Harris are two bowls of poison for Beijing,” mentioned Zhao Minghao, a professor of the Institute of Worldwide Research and Middle for American Research at Fudan College. “Both see China as a competitor or even an adversary.”
Whereas Harris co-sponsored payments when she was a senator defending human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the north-western area the place Beijing has detained practically 1mn primarily Uyghur Muslim minorities, Trump launched the commerce struggle, and has pledged increased tariffs on Chinese language items if he wins once more.
Harris talked about China simply as soon as in her speech to the Democratic conference, vowing to make sure “that America — not China — wins the competition for the 21st century”.
Trump, against this, referred to China 14 instances on the Republican Nationwide Conference final month, together with boasting that he had saved Beijing “at bay” throughout his presidency and bemoaning the lack of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which he claimed was “one hour away from where China makes their nuclear weapons”, an implicit menace.
“People know a lot about Trump, about how he intends to govern if elected,” mentioned Thomas Qitong Cao, assistant professor at Tufts College’s Fletcher Faculty of worldwide affairs. “Whereas for Harris, there’s still a lot of mystery.”
Earlier than turning into vice-president, Harris — who has by no means been to China — had comparatively little publicity to international affairs. Since taking workplace, she has travelled abroad 17 instances, together with making 4 visits to east Asia, the place she briefly met Xi in Thailand in 2022 and rubbed shoulders along with his quantity two, premier Li Qiang, in Jakarta final yr.
Most Chinese language lecturers mentioned that extra vital than Harris’s file within the much less highly effective place of vice-president was whether or not she would retain members of Biden’s international coverage staff, reminiscent of secretary of state Antony Blinken, his deputy Kurt Campbell and nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan, in addition to different senior officers who’ve been instrumental to hawkish insurance policies on China.
Uncertainty over her staff has left not solely Beijing however even consultants in Washington speeding to work out who she would decide for vital positions on the area, significantly China. Her nationwide safety adviser as vice-president, Philip Gordon, is just not an Asia skilled.
“What really matters is who she trusts because she is not an expert on foreign affairs,” mentioned Wang Chong, a international coverage skilled at Zhejiang Worldwide Research College, who added that Harris’s nomination got here as a “surprise” for a lot of in China.
Her working mate, Tim Walz, had the potential to deliver a extra private contact to bilateral relations, some Chinese language analysts mentioned. Whereas Walz, who first visited China many years in the past as a younger instructor, has been sharply essential of the Chinese language Communist occasion, he’s remembered fondly by these he interacted with within the nation.
Walz has additionally met the Dalai Lama, whose assembly final week with US officers sparked anger from Beijing.
“His personal qualities made me feel that the outside world was friendly,” mentioned Christy Dai, considered one of his former college students at Foshan No 1 Excessive Faculty, the place Walz taught in 1989. “If there’s a world leader like him”, worldwide affairs may transfer within the “right direction”, she instructed the Monetary Instances.
However “just because a person knows about China, that doesn’t mean they support China”, Wang mentioned.
Whereas Biden has rallied US allies to impose export controls on superior know-how and elements to China and deepen safety co-operation within the area, his officers have additionally tried to foster communication with Beijing.
“Biden’s officials have been emphasising that the US doesn’t want decoupling, they want de-risking,” Fudan’s Zhao mentioned, including that the softer tone was in response to stress from enterprise to de-escalate tensions and confirmed that Democrats had been capable of “listen to society”.
He prompt that there could be extra continuity and predictability from a Harris presidency than “Trump 2.0”.
Chinese language policymakers concern {that a} Trump administration, quite than pursuing a coverage of “managing competition”, would search “victory” in a brand new chilly struggle whose final goal many analysts suspect is regime change. For the Communist occasion, this is able to be an existential menace.
“China can only and will only wish the lesser of two evils elected,” mentioned Shi Yinhong, professor of worldwide relations at Renmin College in Beijing.
Some analysts argue that one other Trump presidency would profit China by sowing home chaos within the US and upending Washington’s international alliances and commerce partnerships. Trump’s heat in direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin would additionally blunt western efforts to place stress on Beijing over its tacit help for Moscow’s struggle in Ukraine.
However Shi cautioned towards such hopes. Throughout his first time period, Trump revived the Quad alliance with Japan, Australia and India, enacted the Taiwan Journey Act permitting high-level officers from every nation to go to and initiated commerce hostilities towards China.
Others pointed to Trump’s antagonism in direction of Beijing over the Covid-19 pandemic, which he referred to as labelled the “China virus”.
“From March 2020, he became hysterical towards China,” Shi mentioned.
Harris, he added, “does not make overthrowing the Chinese government an open, programmatic goal, and has much greater policy predictability than Trump”.
