NEWS//China's view of the US elections
Bill Bishop of Sinocism.com, a respected China-watch newsletter, reported this week on an article in the Economist entitled No American election will change China’s mind. The author of the article, who is unnamed for security reasons, offered the following observations
After listening to "a senior Chinese official explain why his country does not care who sits in the White House," the author reports, "To Chinese leaders, Donald Trump’s aggression in office merely accelerated some inevitable trends. To them, the Trump era shows that talk of values is a sham, that China alarms Americans because it is getting stronger—and that the solution is to become more powerful, until Western critics are shamed into silence by China’s success."
The article cites Ren Yi, a Harvard-educated Chinese blogger with 1.7 million social media followers. Ren believes "most Chinese 'think of US politics as a huge conspiracy to keep China down,' a suspicion that they flaunt as a badge of sophistication, says the blogger. Where once the Chinese romanticized America as an advanced nation, 'Now because of COVID they see the US people as selfish, anti-science, anti-intellectual. …. Homogeneous China finds it hard to comprehend pluralistic, divided America, says Mr. Ren. What Chinese really care about is China’s strength and territorial integrity. 'They think that it is China’s destiny to rise, and so to come into conflict with America.'”
The article also refers to Wang Yong who directs the Center for American Studies at Peking University. "As he describes it, America’s China policies are guided by competing interest groups, with Mr. Biden heeding the Wall Street financiers and Silicon Valley bosses who seek 'more rational' ties with China, while hawks and 'deep-state forces' push for a new cold war. China and America can work together on such shared interests as climate change, public health, and enabling global prosperity, he insists. Yet people should be realistic…. America 'has been accustomed to the top position in world affairs and will use all means to defend its status.'"
The article concludes: "Amid such distrust, any Chinese rapprochement with America should be understood for what it is: a bid to buy time while China races to become stronger. China’s rulers are not hiding their worldview, which is based on the idea that only the powerful are treated with respect. America can choose whether or not to compete. But it has been warned: American gridlock would be a win for China."
Sources: Portal4News, The Economist, Sinocism