The Chinese media is frenetically speculating about the affect the recent elections will have on China-U.S. relations. With Nancy Pelosi as the new Speaker of the House and the recent resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, China is anticipating changes but, in the spirit of a country with 5,000 years of history, it's not panicking.
The Chinese expect Vice President Dick Cheney to resign for health reasons, following the departure of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to China Confidential in a post entitled, "Chinese Speculate About Baker Replacing Cheney." China Confidential said, "Some Chinese reporters and think tank researchers see former US Secretary of State James Baker as a possible Cheney replacement."
Baker is leading the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group charged with making a "forward-looking assessment of the situation in Iraq." During an appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Baker said that the current Iraqi government is capable of sustaining peace in the war-torn region (see here). On the separate but pressing issue of North Korea's latest threats of another nuclear missile test, Baker disagreed with the Bush administration's refusal to engage directly in bilateral talks with the rogue nation.
China Confidential said the following in an editorial entitled, "What the U.S. Elections Mean for China":
In the area of foreign policy, Chinese Communist Party rulers will have to do more than pay lip service to being a so-called responsible stakeholder in the international system. The American people and their elected representatives--an alien, frightening concept to Chinese officials--are in no mood for funding an adversary. China's support for nuclearizing, Islamist Iran is alarming, as is China's continued sponsorship of nuclear armed North Korea. On the one hand, Beijing seems to have pressured Pyongyang to return to suspended six-party disarmament talks; on the other hand, China was mainly responsible for watering down the United Nations sanctions that were imposed on North Korea following its provocative nuclear bomb test; and Beijing has blocked Washington's efforts to strictly enforce the sanctions via naval blockade and interdictions and inspections at sea of suspect ships.
The Pelosi Fear Factor
The Washington Post elucidated China's reaction to Nancy Pelosi, one of Beijing's most ardent critics, taking charge of the House of Representatives in an article entitled, "China Anticipates Bumpy Road With U.S." Pelosi is notorious for being critical of China's human rights violations, and she vehemently opposed giving Beijing the 2008 Olympics, fearing it would imply U.S. approval of China's human rights violations.
"This old woman has a great bias against China, possibly creating some static in China-U.S. relations," Jin Canrong, an America watcher at Renmin University in Beijing, said in a report Wednesday on Sina.com, one of China's most popular Internet portals. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, in the government's first public reaction, called on Congress to "play a constructive role in promoting our relations."
A Chinese weekly newspaper called the Southern Weekend said, "A Congress under Pelosi's leadership will not only concern itself with China's internal human rights situation but also China's overseas activities with neighboring countries and Africa."
Now that Pelosi is in a greater position of influence China is concerned that she may take measures to push an anti-China agenda. It is possible that Pelosi will ask a fellow Californian and another high-profile critic of China, Rep. Tom Lantos, to head the House International Relations Committee. There is also concern about her choice to run a Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a panel created six years ago to monitor China's respect for civil liberties. It is also possible that she may revive a bill, passed this year by the Senate but not by the House, that would impose high tariffs on Chinese imports. The levies are meant to compensate for what supporters say is a Chinese policy to keep its currency undervalued to make its exports inexpensive.
"She won't change the overall climate," said Wang Jisi, head of Peking University's School of International Studies. "The strategic suspicions are still there. But the U.S. is not making noise on China's Africa policy and China's not making things more difficult for the U.S. in the Middle East."
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