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The vice-president makes no promise to defend Taiwan; her rival boasts of being crazy

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THROUGHOUT HER campaign, Kamala Harris has hewed to the foreign policy of President Joe Biden. But there is a little daylight between the two in at least one important area: America’s relations with China. To judge by her limited remarks on the topic, Ms Harris seems less hawkish than her boss. She is reluctant to treat China as an actual or potential enemy and, if elected, hopes to maintain a dialogue with its leader, Xi Jinping. Unlike her rival, Donald Trump, she is not interested in a trade war. This impression was reinforced by a senior adviser who told The Economist: “Conflict is not imminent. Our job is to ensure that it is not imminent.”

The clearest evidence of this posture is over Taiwan, a democratic, self-governing island with which China has vowed to “reunify”, by force if necessary. Mr Biden said four times during his presidency that America would defend Taiwan if China tried to invade it. But when Ms Harris was asked a question about this in an interview with CBS News this month, she did not repeat her boss’s pledge: “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals.”

Ms Harris is deliberately reverting to the pre-Biden policy of “strategic ambiguity”, in which America will not say whether it might intervene in a conflict between the mainland and Taiwan. At a time of growing military tension across the Taiwan Strait, when every utterance is parsed for meaning, this is a striking change. It also stands in contrast to comments by Mr Trump, who has gone for an entirely different sort of ambiguity—at times implying that Taiwan is not worth defending, at others suggesting he would threaten Mr Xi with punitive tariffs to deter an invasion. Would he threaten to use military force? “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me and he knows I’m fucking crazy,” Mr Trump told the Wall Street Journal.

In the non-crazy world, strategic ambiguity is woven into the Taiwan Relations Act, a law passed in 1979 after America switched diplomatic recognition from the Nationalists in Taiwan to the Communists on the mainland. It commits America to supply weapons for Taiwan to defend itself, which Ms Harris has vowed to do; and to maintain its own power “to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion”. Ms Harris’s non-committal position is “consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act”, says her aide. By implication it is Mr Biden who strayed from the norm. The vice-president may want to reassure Mr Xi that America is not pushing for war. The danger is that he may take it as a weakening of America’s resolve.

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Ms Harris offered another intriguing clue in her interview with CBS News. Asked which country was America’s greatest adversary, she pointed to Iran, which she said had “American blood on their hands”. Most politicians in Washington probably would have named China. Mr Biden’s national-security strategy identifies the country as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”

Perhaps Ms Harris had Iran front of mind because it had just fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. Her adviser insists the vice-president is “clear-eyed” about China, pointing to her comments at the Democratic National Convention, when she vowed to ensure “that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century; and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership”. Moreover, much of her foreign-policy experience as vice-president has been in dealing with Asian allies alarmed by China’s bellicosity.

Though her comments and those of her entourage mostly align with current policy, the tone feels softer than Mr Biden’s or Mr Trump’s. Ms Harris may talk of competition, but not of deterrence. She has said: “We must be able to compete and win. We should not seek conflict.” She emphasises the need for open lines of communication. The only warning to China is that, as her aide puts it, “there will be real economic consequences” if it invades Taiwan.

Ms Harris is admittedly in a bind, struggling to emerge from the shadow of the president she still serves. Policy differences either seem disloyal or invite accusations of flip-flopping. Nor does Ms Harris want to be outflanked by Mr Trump, whom she has accused of being meek towards Mr Xi. Her entourage says she fully embraces Mr Biden’s “responsibly managed competition” with China. On the competition side of the ledger this involves industrial policy at home, restrictions on high-tech exports to China and strengthening alliances in Asia. On the responsible management side it features co-operation with China on restricting fentanyl smuggling, dialogue on artificial intelligence, contacts with Chinese leaders and revived communication between military commanders.

The acute tension between the two powers, which led to dangerous encounters at sea and in the air, has abated since a Biden-Xi summit in November 2023. But the cordiality may not last given the wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the fact that China is working ever more closely with Russia, Iran and North Korea in an “axis of autocracy”. In July a bipartisan commission on America’s national-security strategy, mandated by Congress, sounded a warning that America faces “the most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, including “the potential for near-term major war”.

Ms Harris’s camp appears not to share such dread, and shows no sign of heeding the commission’s call for much higher defence spending. As for the axis of autocrats, “the more they co-operate with each other, the more we can rally allies to our side,” her aide says. If elected, Ms Harris’s China policy will depend on the world she finds and the people she appoints. Mr Biden, with a lifetime’s expertise on foreign affairs, surprised many people by how tough he turned out to be on China.

Jude Blanchette of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says some in the Democratic Party think Mr Biden went too far, and want a softer line. Indeed, some Democrats see China as the most biddable member of the axis of autocracy. It wants some form of world order and co-operates with America in certain areas. Besides, adds Ivan Kanapathy, a former White House official under Mr Trump, “if you have two wars going on your watch, and you’re not going to raise defence spending, you have to turn down the heat in the Pacific.” ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

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The US elections of 2024GeopoliticsDonald TrumpChinaKamala Harris.css-2x8c4j{margin:0.875rem 0;}.css-2x8c4j .e12sz0jx0+*{margin-top:0.875rem;}.el1rg701+.css-2x8c4j{margin-top:0;}.css-1aogxph{color:var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-20);font-family:var(–mb-typeface-sans);font-size:var(–mb-typestyle-label-2-size);font-variant:var(–mb-typestyle-label-2-figures);line-height:var(–mb-typestyle-label-2-leading);}.css-1aogxph s,.css-1aogxph del{-webkit-text-decoration:line-through;text-decoration:line-through;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;}.css-1aogxph b{font-weight:var(–mb-font-weight-semibold);}.css-1aogxph i{font-style:italic;}.css-1aogxph sup{font-feature-settings:’sups’ 1;}.css-1aogxph sub{font-feature-settings:’subs’ 1;}.css-1aogxph u{text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;}.css-1aogxph a{color:var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-20);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-underline-offset:0.1875rem;}.css-1aogxph a:hover,.css-1aogxph a:focus,.css-1aogxph a:active{text-decoration-thickness:var(–mb-spacing-3xs);}.css-1aogxph a:hover{color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-30);}.css-1aogxph a:hover span{text-decoration-color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-30);}.css-1aogxph a:focus{background-color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-90);color:var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);text-decoration-color:var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);outline:none;}.css-1aogxph a:active{background-color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-90);color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-30);text-decoration-color:var(–mb-colour-base-chicago-30);}

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Ambiguity or madness? ”

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China

October 26th 2024

• →Ambiguity or madness? Where Harris and Trump stand on China
• →How China is trying to win back foreign tourists
• →A female comedian has Chinese men up in arms

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From the October 26th 2024 edition

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Hail China’s new “ice-and-snow economy”

The country is betting on winter sports and tourism to boost growth in its rustbelt

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Источник: www.economist.com