Anti-Chinese Campaign Rhetoric Hurts Western Democracies
Former U.S. President Donald Trump believes he has a great relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he once called a “king” because he is “president for life.” Such vignettes from his term in office have become a staple of Trump’s rallies as he gears up for an expected bid to return to the White House in 2025.
Meanwhile, Rep. Tim Ryan, a moderate Democrat running for one of Ohio’s two seats in the Senate, ran political advertisements on Twitter that could have easily been taken from Trump’s playbook. “It’s us vs. China,” Ryan wrote, adding that “China is out-manufacturing us left and right and it’s time we fight back.”
Regardless of party or political leanings, whether oddly admirative or belligerently combative, the mention of China on the campaign trail in the U.S. is almost obligatory, and now resembles a point of consensus in the otherwise polarized country. Across the West, in fact, anti-China rhetoric seeks to boost patriotism among citizens and provide a clear framework to rally the public around
In the U.K., China was similarly a major topic during debates between Lizz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the top two candidates who vied for leadership of the ruling Conservative Party after the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Truss and Sunak traded barbs over a range of issues, but both framed China as the “largest threat” to British security interests as they canvassed support for their respective candidacies among Conservative members of parliament. Truss went on to win Monday, replacing Johnson as British prime minister. But the contest between her and Sunak was yet another recent example of Western political figures using tensions with China to boost their domestic electoral fortunes.
As international politics continues to become more competitive and less cooperative, with a range of urgent economic, diplomatic and geopolitical questions demanding answers, framing China as the greatest threat to international peace and stability creates a convenient and effective rallying point for many politicians. In practice, however, this pattern of behavior reveals more about the West than it does about Beijing.
Politicians’ instinct to protect their immediate interests can create an environment of aggressive nationalism, regardless of party affiliation. But even if Western politicians criticize Beijing’s authoritarianism, including its surveillance of Chinese citizens and infringement on their rights and liberties, because they think that system of government is morally unacceptable, the message that is often received is that this authoritarianism is innate to “Chineseness.”
When such sentiments spill over into local electoral contests, candidates of Chinese and Taiwanese descent are regularly targeted with threats and even acts of violence. During Australia’s recent parliamentary elections, for instance, Sally Sitou, a Labour Party candidate, took to social media to respond to racist abuse and charges of dual loyalty that she received on account of her Chinese heritage, affirming that her “loyalty has only ever been to Australia.”
These unnecessary loyalty tests, whether expressed verbally or communicated with violence meted out against Asian diasporas in the West, do little to erode the immense power and control Xi Jinping wields in China—that is, the Chinese government’s authoritarianism. Instead they erode the foundations of the liberal democracies they are purportedly trying to protect.
Trump was hardly the first presidential candidate to employ bellicose anti-China rhetoric on the campaign trail, but the former U.S. president was an avatar in popularizing its use as a shorthand for ideologically charged displays of patriotism and nationalism.During his 2016 presidential run, Trump portrayed China’s trade policy as “rape,” while his reelection bid four years later included frequent allusions to unfounded links between the coronavirus and people of Asian descent.
Though at first glance seemingly contradictory, Trump’s appeal actually rests considerably on the juxtaposition of his hawkish, anti-China rhetoric and his warm—if personalist and transactional—relations with Xi. He referred to China as preying on the U.S. and slapped heavy tariffs on Chinese goods, while expressing admiration for Xi’s—and Deng Xiaoping’s—use of security forces to disperse protesters and quash dissent.
This is hardly an _expression_ of democratic values typical of other U.S. presidents and leading political figures, but that wasn’t the aim. Instead, Trump and many other U.S. politicians use China as a wedge issue to fuel patriotism, even if not all of them share Trump’s admiration for authoritarianism.
Unfortunately, hawkish nationalism, even when it contains valid critiques of China’s political institutions, fails to consider the most immediate targets of Beijing’s flawed, dangerous policies—namely, the Chinese people. For all the fear that a rising China conjures in the West, Beijing exercises supremacy mostly within mainland China’s borders.
Xi has described his state-oriented nationalist campaign as “national rejuvenation,” a term he regularly invokes at public events like the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. In this framing, Asia is at the center of Xi’s vision of China’s ambition, his hawkish rhetoric against the West notwithstanding. “No one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said at the 100thanniversary of the party’s founding. The speech also elevated the defeat of “Taiwan Independence” to the same level of importance as national rejuvenation itself.
Western campaign rhetoric vilifying China will do little to counter Xi’s ideas and the means China has to realize them. As Trump admiringly boasted, Xi will in all likelihood be president for life. However, the self-serving campaigns of politicians who use anti-China rhetoric as an electoral wedge have just as much staying power, doing little for those most directly targeted by an emboldened regime in Beijing.