China falls for Obama's 'US dream'
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - Despite Beijing's history of sound relations with Republican
presidents from the United States, recent polls shows popular opinion is
bucking the trend, with "hip and unconventional" Democratic presidential
candidate Senator Barack Obama an "overwhelming hit" with ordinary Chinese.
The results of the online poll, conducted on the China Daily website by the US
Embassy in Beijing, gave Obama a much greater lead over his Republican rival,
Senator John McCain, with the support of 75% of Chinese polled. Despite Obama's
tough rhetoric on China's human rights record and other issues.
A Horizon Research survey released on October 22 showed about 35.5% of Chinese
people "pay close attention" to the US
presidential race. Among these people, Obama's supporters exceeded McCain's by
17.8%.
"Perhaps his age, energy and even complexion, which signify the American dream,
are more appealing to the Chinese," Song Zhiyuan, who analyzed the survey, told
the China Daily.
Rebecca Zhu, a 29-year-old bank employee, agreed. "No Chinese leader is that
young," she said. "Obama is attractive because he is hip and unconventional. He
has even used e-mails to advance his campaign."
The media has been awash with commentaries predicting a new, more sensitive
America, vastly different from the country led by current President George W
Bush, should Obama win. The popular notion in China that the US is out to
impose Western ideals on the world, would also take a hit with the election of
a man of African descent.
"Obama's skin color is the biggest focal point of this year's US election,"
said the opening line in a front-page editorial in the overseas edition of
China's People's Daily newspaper in July.
"I want to see if a black American could become the president," Xu Kai, 23, who
works for a real estate company in Wuxi, Jiangsu province told the China Daily.
He added that by electing Obama the Americans could prove the US is
not just a country for white people.
"Many think that because of his origins Obama would be prone to considering
other nations' concerns better than McCain,'' said Shi Yinhong, an expert on
international relations at China's Renmin University. "But for China the most
important factor is that he might be more susceptible to our concerns regarding
Taiwan."
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has adopted a tough stance on
national security, promising to create "a strong military in a dangerous
world". His pledge to commit more troops to Iraq has not been well received in
Beijing.
China was angered by the US Defense Department's recent desicion to
sell Taiwan US$6.46 billion worth of weapons, and while John McCain and Obama
both endorsed the deal, McCain also said the administration should grant
Taiwan's request for submarines and F-16 fighter jets.
The thorny issue of Taiwan aside, Beijing is comfortable in its knowledge that
no matter which presidential candidate wins, bilateral ties are likely to
deepen over the next four years. A victory for McCain would have offered a more
predictable scenario for China, which is accustomed to dealing with Republican
presidents.
Bush - who made securing freedom for people under tyrannical regimes the core
of his agenda in his second term of office - managed to achieve good relations
with China, though he once openly branded it a "strategic competitor".
That continued a long history of "realpolitik" bilateral ties between communist
leaders in Beijing and Republican presidents, initiated by Richard Nixon's
historic visit to Mao's China in 1972. In 1984, Ronald Reagan went to China,
his first visit to a communist country, in the midst of the Cold War.
George H W Bush, father of the current president and a lifelong Sinophile,
spent more than a year in China before becoming president. His work while
president was instrumental in China being granted preferential trade status
during the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre.
His then-national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, also made a secret visit
to Beijing just five weeks after the massacre to reassure Chinese leaders of
America's friendship.
"It is not that China 'loves' Republicans more,'' said Professor Guo Xiangang
at the China Institute of International Studies, which functions under the
foreign ministry. "It is more about having a common goal that binds us. Nixon
and Reagan used China as a chip to counter the threat of the Soviet Union. Bush
needs China's help in his fight against terrorism."
Beijing is now used to the reality of harsh anti-authoritarian rhetoric during
US presidential campaigns, which quickly gives way to more pragmatic
engagements once the elected candidate is in office. "Our bilateral ties are
now above the campaign rhetoric," said Guo. [see
China tangled up in red, white and blue, Oct 3]
The most memorable example of such a flip-flop was former US Democratic
president Bill Clinton, who famously denounced Bush Senior's China policy
during the 1992 campaign as "coddling aging rulers with undisguised
contempt for democracy, for human rights". But once elected he decided that
using trade policy to leverage human rights was counterproductive.
After his 1998 visit to China, Clinton went on to become one of the most
popular US presidents ever among the Chinese people, a household name
remembered for his outgoing demeanor and charisma. But Clinton's celebrity
status in China has now been challenged by Obama's sway among young Chinese.
"[This] shows how much young Chinese people follow popular opinion in the US,"
said Professor Shi. "Two months ago, the same poll would have come out with a
different result. Now, the financial crisis has changed everything."
However, the choice is not as clear cut as it first appears. Obama's criticism
of China's trade practices and his demand that China "play by the international
rules" have irked the Chinese leadership, which fears regular admonishments
over its human rights records from a Democratic president.
Obama in April called for Bush to boycott the Olympic Games opening ceremony in
Beijing in August, saying he would only go to Beijing if he saw progress
between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.
Obama has also threatened to impose trade sanctions due to concerns over the
yawning trade surplus, currency manipulation and intellectual property rights
violations. In his first major foreign policy address of his presidential
campaign, in April 2007, Obama said, "[O]bviously China is rising, and it's not
going away. They're neither our enemy nor our friend."
Yu Honglan, a 47-year-old office cleaner from Beijing, told the China Daily
that she was was nonplussed by the surveys and not too interested in the US
elections, to be held November 4.
"No matter who becomes the US president, he will not have much to do with my
life. I'm concerned about something else - that their falling economy may
affect us."
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