An ominous note of desperation is in the
air over the campaign by Mitt Romney to secure the
Republican nomination for the US presidential
election to be held later this year. The seemingly
obvious, establishment-ordained, safe-bet
candidacy of Romney no longer seems to be the sure
thing.
The longer the GOP primary drags
on, the more the "anyone but Romney" candidates
erode the ability of the former governor of
Massachusetts to walk the fine line between firing
up the Republican base without seeming too
outlandish to appeal to the undecided American
voter.
Consequently, it is worth noting
those rare occasions where the Romney campaign
feels it needs to make a splash, as these tend to
be issues they believe will translate both during
the GOP
primary as well as the
general election. With this in mind, it is
interesting to consider Romney's op-ed in last
week's Wall Street Journal titled "How I'll
Respond to China's Rising Power."
Part of
what Romney wrote aligns with his early September
2011 economic plan, where he announced that his
administration would formally label China a
"currency manipulator". On this point, his Wall
Street Journal op-ed doubled down; there, he
wrote, " ... on day one of my presidency I will
designate it a currency manipulator and take
appropriate counteraction."
As a head nod
to the influential parts of the GOP who represent
the interests of big-business, he subsequently
added, "A trade war with China is the last thing I
want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade
surrender."
For someone who claims not to
want a trade war with China, Romney is making a
pretty compelling case for how his administration
would make one all but certain.
It is a
temptation to read Romney's op-ed as the sort of
positioning during the primaries that Americans
have come to expect during their elections. Even
in the US-China policy-community, many draw
comfort from past election cycles where blustery
comments from potential presidential candidates
were dramatically toned down - if they did not go
away altogether - once their transition into
elected office took place. The present
administration went through a similar smoothing
out of the rough edges about its stance towards
China once it emerged victoriously from both the
primary and the general election.
Admittedly, this is the safest way to
interpret Romney's most recent volley towards the
Chinese: as the primary shifts back to his "home
state", China presents an issue that certainly has
bi-partisan traction in a manufacturing-sensitive
midwestern economy like Michigan, where China's
economy is perceived to have benefited at the
expense of middle-class American blue-collar
workers.
It is a note the Romney campaign
believes can be safely struck not only in the
midst of a heated GOP primary, but in the general
election as well. Tradition says nothing should be
made of Romney's saber rattling towards China, but
is tradition wrong?
Choosing to interpret
Romney's attitude towards China as something not
to be alarmed about overlooks a major difference
between past election cycles and today's: now the
American psyche is deeply frustrated over the
difficulties the country's economy must face.
In the past, the relative confidence felt
about America's economic future allowed many to
overlook the potential threat China might present.
Today, that confidence is gone. The average
American worker remains traumatized and deeply
insecure since the 2008 financial crisis. Many
also feel brutalized over the ugly state of
American politics, precisely when the latter
should be shedding light on how best to deal with
the former. An economic crisis has quickly
devolved into a political one, leaving many in
middle America eager for someone to blame.
Tied to these economic insecurities are
deep misgivings about America's place in the
world, which go back to the US response to 9/11
and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq. Americans are torn between the GOP world
view that argues for America to remain a hegemonic
force for good around the world, versus a
libertarian-progressive framework that believes
that America can be powerful and influential, but
must do so within a the realities of both a
multi-polar world and the economic limitations
imposed on Washington based on years of fiscal
imprudence.
When Romney disparagingly
writes of President Barack Obama that he "came
into office as a near supplicant to Beijing", he
touches on this insecurity and appeals to the
American desire to appear muscular and able to "go
it alone" where others counsel caution and
compromise.
The popular temper American
politicians tap into over China is not necessarily
new, although a good argument could be made that
negative portrayals of China during American
elections has been growing more common in this,
and recent election cycles. Conventional thinking
has it that the real decision-makers about
American policy towards China are those who never
run for elected office, the safe wise men who,
behind closed doors, know how to calm everyone
down and focus on how best to maintain the
status-quo.
That is precisely why Romney's
ongoing diatribe against China is so distressing:
he is supposed to be one of those calm,
level-headed people that could be trusted not to
demagogue China in order to score cheap political
points.
For US-China policy-makers,
Romney's elevation of China as an issue for the
general election should not be overlooked,
downplayed, or rationalized. To have the
supposedly most business-savvy candidate for
president the country has seen in years run within
the most pro-business, historically free trade
American political party with a major plank of his
economic plan being to call out China as a
currency manipulator is noteworthy.
But it
would be a mistake only to point out Romney's
fixation on how China has negatively hurt the
American economy: after all, of the 17 paragraphs
that constitute Romney's editorial, only two of
them have to do with matters related to the two
countries' economies. The other 15 all focus on
Romney's assertion that China is not a trustworthy
partner for America, and that the Beijing model
represents, as he writes, "a widespread and
disquieting norm" that must be challenged by a
change in American policy towards China.
If there is a common thread that ties
together Romney's heavy-handed editorial about
China it is this: the American and Chinese
attitudes about freedom and fairness are not
shared values, and because they are not shared
values nor is it likely they will become shared
anytime soon, the policy of engagement towards
China that stressed overlooking these differences
has served its purpose and must be discarded.
Yes, as Romney sees it, the cause for
doing so will initially be realizations forced
upon Americans as a result of the 2008 financial
crisis; but, if Romney is correct, 2008 simply
brought into focus something America had been
willing to overlook when times were good:
specifically, that the United States was doing
business with a repressive government that had no
aspirations of ever changing. It wanted commerce,
not democracy.
Throughout his piece,
Romney repeatedly points towards the "suppression
of political and personal freedom", takes issue
with the Obama administration having "demurred
from raising issues of human rights" with the
Chinese government, to what is perhaps both his
most direct and confusing statement: towards the
end of his op-ed, Romney writes of China, "A
nation that represses its own people cannot
ultimately be a trusted partner in an
international system based on economic and
political freedom."
As a portrayal of the
tension that has existed in China relative to its
reform process for the last 30 years, this is an
obvious frustration. Where Romney fails is in how
to respond to China's shortcomings.
He
makes little attempt to answer the question;
rather, he simply makes note of the fact that
"While it is obvious that any lasting democratic
reform in China cannot be imposed from the
outside, it is equally obvious that the Chinese
people currently do not yet enjoy the requisite
civil and political rights to turn internal
dissent into effective reform."
Romney
seems to believe China would reform more quickly
if only America spent more on its military, took a
more confrontational position up in the Asia
Pacific region towards China, and called Beijing
out on its unfair trade practices.
Long-time China policy hands might chuckle
at this sort of brutishness, but to do so is a
mistake given these policy proposals are all
coming from the most sane, pro-business candidate
still viable in the GOP primary. If one of the
last bulwarks that has separated mob rule towards
Beijing has been the stoic Republican Party's view
of China, then Romney's fixation on the country as
a threat to the American economy and ideals the
country holds dear is worth noting.
Of all
of Romney's statements, the most dangerous may be
the false choice he offers the American people:
that China's rise is somehow incompatible with
America's ongoing safety and economic stability.
Romney begins his op-ed by asking the
question, "Should the 21st century be an American
century?", as if the only two choices were between
an American and Chinese century. This is dangerous
and highly reductionist thinking, and its impact
ranges from how Romney would have American
economic policy towards China change, to more
fundamental questions of whether the United States
should further increase military spending in order
to deal with China as a potential regional threat.
As he frames it, this also leaves little
oxygen in the room for other countries - both
developed and emerging - who feel they have
something of note to offer the 21st century.
Romney's words need to be properly called what
they are: irresponsible fear mongering. The path
towards war has been paved by comments just like
these in times past, in moments of historical
insecurity just like those his desired-presidency
would encounter.
Romney wants the reader
to believe that, as he writes, "The sum total of
my approach will ensure that this is an American,
not a Chinese century".
What is the key to
making sure this happens? According to Romney, it
is making sure that China is not a "prosperous
tyranny" that can "pose problems for us, for its
neighbors, and for the entire world". Absent
throughout Romney's op-ed is any reference to what
China is doing better than America, where China's
single-minded focus on economic growth forces
politics to take a second chair to questions of
how best to align national industrial policy with
limited resources, or what role government should
play in helping American entrepreneurs compete
with China's growing bio-tech and green technology
industries.
Rather, Romney wants to cast
China in the role of villain, a role the country
easily fits within the American imagination, and
one American politics seems bent on making a
reality.
Benjamin A Shobert is
the Managing Director of Rubicon Strategy Group, a
consulting firm specialized in strategy analysis
for companies looking to enter emerging economies.
He is the author of the upcoming book Blame
China" and can be followed at www.CrossTheRubiconBlog.com.
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