Over the last eight years, China perceived weakness and indetermination in Washington. Whether right or wrong, it used this time to aggressively promote China’s regional and global interests, going so far as to brazenly manufacture and then militarize islands in the disputed South China Sea.
Ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Beijing, well acquainted with Hillary Clinton, understands the potential to have a more determined and decisive American leader in the White House. From FLOTUS, to Senator, to Secretary of State, to Democratic nominee for president, Clinton has acquired an understanding of China’s playbook and will present a more determined partner and, on some issues, an outright adversary in Washington.
Clinton first drew Beijing’s focused attention in 1995 and started what has become a rocky relationship. Her speech at the UN World Conference on Women, held in Beijing that year, famously included the pronouncement that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” While the speech was global in nature, it included specific references to China’s restrictions on the freedoms of choice and family planning that resulted from the one-child policy. China viewed this declaration as offensive and intrusive into its domestic affairs.
In 2010, after Google accused China of hacking into human rights activists’ email accounts, then Secretary of State Clinton gave a major speech on internet freedom and implied China violated the “basic rights of internet users.” In a 2011 interview with the Atlantic, Secretary Clinton explicitly described China’s human rights record as “deplorable.” And in 2012, Clinton was directly and personally involved in helping extricate the blind lawyer and activist Chen Guancheng from China, after he fled house arrest for protection in the American embassy.
These public interactions over subjects China believes are none of America’s business mean that China views a potential President Clinton as detrimental to their interests. However, China’s dissatisfaction with Clinton extends to a deeper vein that runs to the core of China’s global aspirations.
What China fears most is a U.S. leader who will talk to Americans and make the case for Asia’s central importance to their economic well-being and safety as a nation; in effect, a leader who will tell the truth about economic and geopolitics, and build a long-term political foundation for American engagement in Asia. While Donald Trump presents himself as an effective dealmaker, Secretary Clinton championed the pivot to Asia, promoted a rules-based order of international relations, and sought to ensure the United States was at the table for any conversation that could intersect its interests.
Although candidate Clinton says she does not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in its current form, China knows Secretary Clinton was an advocate and architect of TPP, an important step toward a broader U.S. economic strategy encompassing all of Asia. Should a Clinton Administration focus on this approach, China’s rush to advance Sino-centric integration plans for Asia would be subsumed by a broader, rules based approach that the rest of Asia yearns for. Most of China’s neighbors are urgently seeking signals that the U.S. is making a long-term, strategic commitment based on a foundation of understanding of Asia’s importance among the American people.
This is problematic for China, which views global politics, not just the economy, through a mercantilist lens. China wants a system in which it can engage each member of its neighborhood on a one-on-one basis and offer deals that leverage China’s economic influence. China’s One Belt-One Road (OBOR) initiative, and institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and New Development Bank that will aid OBOR’s implementation, are tools China can most effectively wield in such a global system.
China wants to maintain its ability to engage countries on an individual basis and use its economic influence to create what it calls “win-win scenarios.” In this respect, China does not want to commit to a rules-based order championed by the United States and supported by other like-minded countries.
The South China Sea has demonstrated China’s intent. Prior to the decision passed down by the arbitral court for the United Nations in The Hague earlier this month, China forcibly occupied Scarborough Shoal and used economic sanctions to try to force Manila to concede and forfeit its sovereign claims of disputed areas in the South China Sea. These actions prompted the Philippines to appeal for a ruling based on international law, a ruling which ultimately presented an overwhelming legal victory for the Philippines.
Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Hanoi at the ASEAN Regional Forum in 2010 underlined a strong determination to commit the United States to reinforcing a rules-based system in Asia, saying the peaceful resolution of disputes based on international law was a U.S. “national interest.” This statement reassured Asia that the United States would not let China, whose proximity and economic ascendance was and still is used as sovereign leverage, to dominate its smaller neighbors. Beijing then viewed her remarks as threatening to its interests, and thus now views a Clinton presidency as detrimental to advancing its agenda.
Chinese foreign policy experts have become keen U.S. political analysts. They are fascinated with the 2016 election and the idea that Americans may want to choose a leader who would turn the country inward, build walls, and isolate itself. Beijing regularly warns other Asian countries, who depend on the guarantees of security and economic ballast provided by the United States, that Americans may not always be focused on Asia.
But it knows that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she understands the geopolitical calculus that mandates deeper and foundational U.S. engagement in Asia.
China would rather roll the dice with the deal maker and casino owner Mr. Trump than cope with a focused and determined Ms. Clinton, who may be willing to be more straightforward with Americans if she wins the race for the presidency.
