Why Trump or Harris might sell out to China

For some Americans, the relevant question isn’t “Which candidate will stand up to China?”, it’s “Should the US stand up to China at all?”

There are still some progressives who believe that the negative turn in relations between the two countries is America’s doing, and that if we chose, we could simply stop “saber-rattling” and “warmongering” and return everything to the world of 2012.

And there are some on the right who think the US should abandon Asia to Chinese hegemony, retreat behind our oceans and focus on culture wars at home – basically the same approach they take toward Russia and Ukraine.

Both of these groups are wrong. It is important for the US to stand up to China, not just because of what they’re trying to do to the US right now — force us to deindustrialize, sow division in our body politic, control our speech from afar and so on — but what else they’ll do to the US if it sits back and lets them win Cold War 2.

Knowing that the US is a dangerous potential rival, China’s current leadership would do everything possible to weaken that rival. “Engagement” didn’t make the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pro-America before 2016 and it would be even less successful now. Some day the US and China will be friends again, but for right now, what’s needed is a balance of power.

Most Americans, fortunately, probably realize this at an intuitive level. Opinions of China are strongly negative across all demographic groups – conservatives and liberals, old and young.

An overwhelming majority of Americans say that limiting China’s power and influence should be a priority for the US government:

Joe Biden and his administration have been very tough on China — tougher even than Donald Trump was in his first term.

Under Biden,