China sees little relief from trade tensions as US goes to the polls

Americans go to the polls on November 5 to choose between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, with polls suggesting the two are neck and neck.

Governments around the world are hoping to avoid a return to the disruption that marked Trump's term in office, but Beijing is readying for more bitter disputes over trade regardless of who sits in the White House.

Both candidates have promised a harder line on China, the world's second-largest economy and one of Washington's biggest trading partners, to ensure the United States "wins" the great power competition.

"A Harris administration would employ a scalpel, and a Trump administration a hammer," said Thibault Denamiel, associate fellow at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Beijing as a matter of principle does not comment on other countries' elections, though it has said it opposes China being used as an issue on the campaign trail.

During his time as president, Trump launched a gruelling trade war with China, imposing swingeing tariffs on Chinese goods for what he said were unfair practices by Beijing such as theft of US technology and currency manipulation.

Tensions haven't abated under his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, with relations at their lowest levels in decades and Washington putting sharp new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, EV batteries and solar cells.

And there is a sense of grim resignation that neither candidate will reverse that.

"The United States used to be the champion of free trade," Wang Dong of Peking University's School of International Studies told AFP.

Now, the country has thrown it "into the trash bin".
America first
Harris's campaign says she "will make sure that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century", noting that the Democrat has "stood up to China's unfair economic practices".

Trump, in turn, built his political brand on the assertion that foreign countries -- including China -- have been taking advantage of the United States.

While the former president has proposed a 10-20 percent tariff on all imports, he wants an even higher rate of 60 percent on Chinese goods.

"A ratcheting up in protectionism following the US elections could trigger a major re-ordering of world trade," wrote Adam Slater, Lead Economist at Oxford Economics.

Trump's tariff proposals "could slash US-China bilateral trade by 70 percent and cause hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of trade to be eliminated or redirected", he wrote.

In contrast, one analyst suggested a potential Harris administration could take a more "strategic and selective approach" to tariffs.

"Harris would be in a better position to minimise any economic harm to the United States, while focusing on impacting China on products that matter," Wendy Cutler, Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told AFP.
Art of the deal
Trump's proposal could hit $500 billion worth of Chinese exports, analysis by asset managers PineBridge Investments suggested in August.

But they also said Trump would likely use tariffs as a "negotiation tool".

The tycoon has made much of his reputation as a dealmaker and his rapport with autocratic leaders like President Xi Jinping.

And in China, some online think Trump might be keen to improve ties.

"That would be worth looking forward to," one user on X-like Weibo wrote, predicting Trump would come to the negotiating table only after his tariffs caused an "economic crisis" in the United States.

In a recent conversation at Beijing's Tsinghua University, prominent international relations scholar Yan Xuetong said he expected Harris to intensify a downward spiral in ties.

"Harris is more eager to maintain America's dominance than Trump," he said.

"If Harris wins the election, the US-China political conflict will... increase."

Peking University's Wang was just as sceptical of Trump.

"For MAGA people, they probably couldn't care less about America's global leadership," said Wang, referring to Trump's signature call to "Make America Great Again."

To Wang, their message is clear: "'Go to hell, internationalism'".