China apparently a non-issue at US midterm elections
As the wider world nervously awaits the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections, it appeared that on the streets of Philadelphia few if any voters had China on their minds.
This year’s midterms are focused on whether US President Donald Trump and his Republicans can hold on to the Senate and continue his controversial policies.
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in late October has prompted Democrats to argue for greater gun control.
Rick Dunham, former White House correspondent for Businessweek, told the Global Times Tuesday that a clear divide between the two parties is needed to create a partisan election issue, like guns or immigration. Differences on China are rather minor, he noted.
“There is no broad constituency for extreme China bashing as there is for attacks on Muslims and Mexicans,” Dunham said.
“Economic issues are usually the most important. When the economy’s strong, as it is now, social issues become most important. That’s true this year with immigration and guns.”
Trump’s harsh rhetoric and actions against immigrants seem to engender no tensions in the Chinese-American community, said K.F. Lin, an 82-year-old Chinese-American resident of the city of Philadelphia.
“There has long been deepseated discrimination against other races, not necessarily the ethnic Chinese, among American whites, and Trump just made his stance clear in a flagrant way,” Lin told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Dunham pointed out that unlike Trump, most Democrats and Republicans favor liberalized global trade.
Democrats would follow the Obama precedent of cooperation while resolving disputes through talks, not tariffs, he said.
Those voters who favor free trade are hoping for a change in the country’s trade policies.
Governments that try to protect weak domestic producers in the short term by creating barriers that make it harder for domestic consumers to buy foreign goods in the end burden domestic consumers with higher costs, Kevin O’Brien, an estate-planning lawyer and a Democrat in Philadelphia, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
“Consumers should be free to choose the best products at the best prices. We will all be better off if we can buy from the most efficient producers, no matter where they are,” he said.