Obama and Romney - Significant difference in policies on China?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

So I was having an argument with a close individual about whether or not Obama is the same as Romney. After conceding to all the points I'd made about the economy, he brought up a tuna I had never witnessed.

He claimed that Romney had already outlined policies to stress/ruffle ties with China, making the geopolitical and economic systems very dangerous and damaging to Oceanic countries (one of which we live in), and could potentially ruin our future.

I had honestly never heard of this before. Could any leftists tell me more about this China embargo/Oceania-as-a-political-battleground stuff? What's your response to it?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Anyone?

[Red Commissar]

I can't say if I've heard of anything like this before that made Romney unique to this. If I understand what you said correctly, your close individual asserted that Romney's policy towards China would have been more negative and caused a trade war of sorts?

That would come with the position that Romney was actually dead serious about his threats to take China to task over currency manipulation, cyber-espionage, trade disputes etc.. Spoiler alert- all US elections since the 1990s have seen both Republican and Democratic candidates assert that they would take aggressive action against China, both politically ("Human Rights" and economically. When elected into office, this never materializes for the very simple reason that China plays an important role in the US economy as the US does in China's.

Romney did make a statement in one of the debates that he would "on day one" declare China a currency manipulator, a stern action to take all things considered. It's important to note though that pundits from both Democrats and Republican always warn about the tricky nature of the global economy and attacking China directly, out of fear of it causing a trade war. Neither Obama nor Romney really want that, despite their "tough" language they give out to supporters.

Obama for his part also made a lot of assertions that he has been "tough" on China by pointing out that they have been calling out the country on currency manipulation and certain trade practices. However neither would really take a stern position against China for practical reasons- it would not be good business! Heck, Romney always talked about his credentials in this field, and I'm sure he was aware more than anyone else about China's role in the global economy. The statements he threw out were peanuts he was trying to feed to disaffected rust belt workers who've been affected by Chinese dominance in manufacturing of light goods.

As for how a trade war would presumably affect Oceania (presuming that "Oceania" used is the one that includes Australia and New Zealand), the reason is one more that the whole region would be rocked by the instability caused. Oceania's economy has connections to those in Southeast and particularly East Asia. Australia for example has China both as its largest export market and importer.

[Ocean Seal]

TBH they were both jerking each other off on how awful China was for manipulating their currency.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think in some of the debates, Romney tried to criticize Obama for being "soft" on china - he also had campaign ads to that effect too.

But Obama responded: I AM hard on them. So it's really just the Republicans trying to re-take some of their right-wing ground as "best for US security" that Obama erroded by touting the death of Osama.

And in reality Obama's admin has been keeping on more or less the same track as his predecessors. In fact part of his appeal among the ruling class could be that as a liberal and a part-black guy at that, he might be more convincing for North African and African in saying that the US can be a good and fair partner in order to try and outflank China's own imperialist ambitions - specifically in Africa.

The US has a classic "warring brother" relationship with China - they need China's economic power, but they also want to contain it to prevent China from going beyond that. China is trying to present itself as the "reasonable" trade partner to the 3rd world after the harsh policies of neoliberalism have fucked over workers as well as domestic elites (in a different way of course) for 30 some years. China has a more dynamic and still-expanding economy, but as long as the US can control trade and access to resources, China can't advance. So the US wants to make sure China still has to negotiate trade through pro-US governments and make sure that it won't use it's economic might to build up military might capable of forging new trade agreements and forcing borders open to them - and of course feasibly counter US military force.