Why US-China relations are at their lowest point in decades
By Barbara Plett Usher BBC State Department correspondent
3 hours ago
[...]
So is this move to confrontation about the election?
Yes and no.
"Yes" because Mr Trump has only recently fully adopted the anti-China campaign-speak that his strategists feel will resonate with voters. It builds on his 2016 nationalist talking points about getting tough with a China that had "ripped off the United States".
But it adds a heavy dose of blame over the way Beijing handled the coronavirus outbreak as the president's ratings on his own response tumble. The message is that China is responsible for the Covid mess in the country, not him.
"No" because hardliners in his administration, like Mr Pompeo, have for some time been pressing for tougher action against Beijing and laying the groundwork for such an approach. The president had been vacillating between that advice and his own desire to pursue a trade deal and develop his "friendship" with the Chinese Leader Xi Jinping.
The consulate closure indicates that the China hawks have gained the upper hand for now, aided by genuine anger in Washington at the Chinese government's lack of transparency about a virus that has brought global disaster.
[...]
The long term depends on who wins in November. But even though the Democratic candidate Joe Biden would be more inclined to revive avenues of cooperation, he's also campaigning on a get-tough-with-China message. It's a popular theme reflecting an extremely rare bipartisan consensus that goes beyond the occupant of the White House.
Jim Carafano, a national security expert at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, argues that challenging China's "destabilising" behaviour is a path to stability, not escalation. "In the past we haven't made clear where the Chinese were violating our interests and they've marched on," he told the BBC.
But William Cohen, a Republican politician who served as defence secretary under the Democratic President Bill Clinton, thinks it's dangerous that China is being seen as an adversary across the political spectrum.
Its military, economic and technological expansions have caused the US to say "we can't do business the way we've been doing business," he says.
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