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campaign rhetoric and if elected, he would follow “the established path.”³⁷ Such optimism was echoed by Eric Li, who shortly after Trump’s election declared in a New York Times op-ed that in the long term, China prefers a relationship with a United States that “doesn’t try to remake the world” according to its own values and standards. From Li’s perspective, President-Elect Trump, a “resolute businessman with little ideological underpinning,” would have little desire to ask China to follow America’s example.³⁸

In general, there were two prevailing views among Chinese experts regarding the contrasts between Trump and Clinton’s prospective China policy. First, it was generally agreed that there would be more challenges for ChinaUS relations in regards to bilateral trade and economic relations under a Trump presidency, while Clinton would take a tougher stance against China over security and human rights issues.³⁹ Second, it would be easier for China to deal with a Trump presidency, either because he had zero foreign policy experience, or because he was perceived as more pragmatic and flexible in contrast to Clinton’s long-standing China record.⁴⁰ A few Chinese experts endorsed Clinton as a better choice for China because it was assumed that the predictability of her policy positions would lead to stability, while Trump’s unpredictability was more likely to bring volatility to the relationship between the two countries.⁴¹

It is important to note that Chinese scholars shared faith that no matter who became the next president, China-US relations would continue to make progress despite potential fluctuations at the beginning of his or her administration.⁴² There were two reasons behind this confidence. First, most Chinese experts believe that intertwined interests and interdependence between China and the United States are simply so overwhelming that neither side could afford any serious setback in bilateral relations. Such faith in the significance of China-US relations seems to be confirmed by China’s experience dealing with past American presidents. Historically, even those presidents who were initially committed to a hardline China policy would eventually soften their approach and engage with China in more constructive terms. For example, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush leveled sharp criticisms at China on the campaign trail. Both shifted their positions later to foster closer ties with China, after either failing to twist China’s arms on human rights or recognizing the need to work with China on global issues such as anti-terrorism. In other words, China has confidence that US leadership transitions will not bring major structural changes to the bilateral ties. Second, as China’s power continues to grow, it will become more capable of setting the agenda and shaping the trajectory of the China-US relationship, which will be subject to less influence from American domestic politics.⁴³ Despite China’s confidence in the resilience of the relationship, however, the presidential candidates’ practice of critiquing China over a wide range of issues reminded the Chinese about the negative elements and potential instability of the relationship.

       FROM CHINA-BASHING TO AMERICA-BASHING: THE ELECTION AND ITS UNINTENDED IMPLICATIONS

      Due to the enormous significance of China-US relations, so-called China issues are popular talking points during US presidential elections. Although issues related to China have rarely dominated elections in the United States, China-bashing on the campaign trail does add to the turbulence of the bilateral relationship. Thus, the Chinese media and experts are used to devoting most of their attention to following the candidates’ China rhetoric on the campaign trail. Unsurprisingly, the 2016 presidential election saw no small amount of China-bashing from both parties’ candidates, which raised Chinese concern.

It is worth noting that the manipulation of China issues in this year’s election has been somewhat different from past elections, not only in terms of the specific issues that were brought up, but also because there seems to be more frequent and negative coverage of the China issues during the campaign. For example, Hillary Clinton had on many occasions challenged China’s qualifications as a “market economy,” while claiming on her campaign website that China has used “unfair trade practices to tilt the playing field against American workers and businesses.”⁴⁴ Donald Trump had also vowed repeatedly that once elected, he would take American jobs back from China, declare China a “currency manipulator,” take punitive measures against China to end its “intellectual property violations,” and levy heavy taxes on China in order to counterbalance China’s “illegal export subsidies” and other “unfair advantages.” As far as Chinese scholars are concerned, these issues are the externalization of domestic issues that relate primarily to the United States’ economy and labor market. Because of the perceived advantages China is gaining over America, both in economy and influence, the presidential candidates have increasingly used China as a “scapegoat” in an attempt to address the American public’s frustration over the American economy’s weak performance as well as other domestic problems.⁴⁵

      Despite the candidates’ intensive criticism of China, however, Chinese policy experts generally agree that campaign rhetoric is not the most reliable guide to the future policy of the next administration. Indeed, trends emerged in the 2016 presidential election that displaced China bashing as a significant cause of Chinese attention. As it turned out, the general narrative of the 2016 election in China was taken over by a different kind of critique—America-bashing if you will—as the faltering of American democracy and the ugliness of the election became the central targets of criticisms and condemnation from the Chinese media and pundits. There is no doubt that the unprecedented America-bashing in the 2016 election changed Chinese perceptions of the United States significantly, but to understand its full implications, it is useful to briefly take stock of Chinese perceptions of the United States from a historical perspective.

       CHINA’S HISTORICAL VIEWS OF THE UNITED STATES

Chinese views of the United States today are largely the reflection of the major issues and characteristics of China-US relations across different historical periods. From the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese perceptions of America were dominated by the irreconcilable differences and extreme hostilities between the two nations.⁴⁶ As America isolated China politically and economically, recognized the “Republic of China (Taiwan)” diplomatically, and confronted China militarily during the Korean War, China regarded the United States as its archenemy and the “evil imperialist” nation. The Chinese government successfully promoted “a widespread attitude of hatred, disdain, and contempt” for the United States among the Chinese public.⁴⁷ Chinese hostility and abhorrence of the United States at the time was perhaps best captured by Chairman Mao’s depiction of America as the “paper tiger” with no real strength. As far as Mao was concerned, the United States “invades the world in the name of anti-communism” and “the entire world, including Great Britain, doesn’t like America.”⁴⁸ Chinese views of the United States before the late 1970s were largely shaped by systematic anti-America propaganda. China’s general public were educated to view America not only as their nation’s biggest threat but also the most sinister Western power trying to destroy their country’s social and political institutions. Meanwhile, China viewed the American “paper tiger” as “deeply wounded by international revolutions and by the erosions of capitalism.” Скачать книгу