China was ready for a bruising in Boca, but it never came. The third and final Presidential debate had been billed for days as the chance for Governor Romney and President Obama to brandish once and for all their strategy for ensuring that China?s rise does not come at America?s expense, and Romney in particular had made that a centerpiece of his campaign. In the event, however, the discussion was muted and sober, which left some Chinese observers baffled.
?ROMNEY SOFTENS, SAYS FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT CHINA COULD BE A PARTNER? was the Shanghai Business News headline, referring to Romney?s observation that ?we can be a partner with China.? ?We don?t have to be an adversary in any way, shape, or form,? he said. ?We can work with them, we can collaborate with them, if they?re willing to be responsible.? Online, people waited for a zinger or two that never materialized. ?Romney even went so far as to say that China and the United States share the same goals, such as seeking world peace, economic development, and free trade,? one commentator wrote.
None of that would be remarkable if the governor had not recently become known in China for his repeated pronouncements that ?China has cheated? and that it ?drives American manufacturers and American producers out of business and kills jobs.? In the Boca Raton debate, he hummed some of the same bars??I?ve watched year in and year out as companies have shut down and people have lost their jobs because China has not played by the same rules??and, more specifically, he reiterated his pledge to declare China a currency manipulator ?on day one? in office, a move that would lay the groundwork for trade sanctions and tariffs. But in China, to be frank, nobody takes it all that seriously. Romney?s tack toward the middle in his final debate (a theme that my colleague John Cassidy explores in his post today) seemed to foreshadow to a Chinese audience the kind of softening that is consistent with a pattern that has run through three decades of American foreign policy: candidates who rail against China on the stump rarely follow through if they win, because China stops being a convenient foil and becomes instead a complicated reality.
Part of the explanation may be that Romney?s signature China issue?accusing the Chinese of artificially depressing the value of its currency to keep its goods cheap and American exports expensive?has lost much of its punch in recent months. Under American pressure, the yuan had risen about eight per cent against the dollar by this spring, when the Obama Administration hailed that as good news, even if it remained ?significantly undervalued.? Even the most prominent liberal critic of China?s currency policy, Paul Krugman, pulled back his critique, writing before the debate that it was ?an issue whose time has passed.?
Even the business community had cooled on Romney?s threats on China?s currency. China has vowed to retaliate on trade, but in the debate Romney presented himself as calling Beijing?s bluff, saying, ?It?s pretty clear who doesn?t want a trade war.? It?s not, actually. Some of the most prominent American business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have come out to oppose Romney?s plan, in the belief that a trade war would wound the American economy.
But the most surprising fact about the debate?s discussion of China?and the one that tells us the most about the new relationship taking shape the world?s two greatest powers?was that neither candidate in uttered the words, ?human rights? in relation to the People?s Republic. That used to be a standard feature. On October 11, 1992, candidate Bill Clinton dinged George H. W. Bush for having ?coddled? the Communist government in the years after the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. ?I would be firm,? Clinton declared. ?If we can stand up for our economics, we ought to be able to preserve the democratic interests of the people of China.? The next day, his campaign put out a statement denouncing the ?butchers of Beijing? and faulting Bush for deciding ?that we should give Most Favored Nation status to Chinese Communists, who deny their people?s basic rights.? (But, once in office, Clinton pushed through legislation making China?s Most Favored Nation status permanent, a decision he called a ?principled, pragmatic approach.?)
The absence of a discussion of human rights will not go over well in the American human-rights community or with Tibetan groups. For the moment, however, in Beijing it is being greeted with pleasure. China takes careful note of vocabulary?the Foreign Ministry keeps track of the mentions of specific words?and the erosion of human rights from the candidates? priorities will be taken as a sign, as foreign-affairs specialist Zhu Feng put it, that economic issues are ?something they really care more about now than human rights or security.?
For more on last night?s debate, read John Cassidy on Mitt the shape-shifter and Amy Davidson on bayonets and battleships, and see our coverage of the other 2012 Presidential debates.
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