Change they cannot believe in

For China’s leaders, an Obama presidency represents a discomfiting uncertainty during troubled times, says Venkatesan Vembu in Hong Kong

Shanghai-based consultant Houston Wu may not have a vote to elect his own national leaders, but he is been enthusiastically tracking and engaging with the US presidential election, and has even cast his ‘notional vote’ in opinion polls and online surveys.

“I ‘voted’ for Barack Obama,” says the 26-year-old Wu. “In China, we do not see any plurality in our politics, so I’m moved and awe-struck by the powerful symbolism of seeing a black man elected to power in America with the support of white people.”
Wu recalls that former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic reforms in 1978, famously said that “it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”

That chromatically correct statement was a call for pragmatism in economic policy formulation, unencumbered by ideological posturing, but Wu and countless others in China have been inspired by that sentiment into embracing the ‘Obama mania’ that’s sweeping across the world.

Spectre of democracy a draw for Chinese
In an online poll conducted last week by the US embassy in Beijing on the website of the official newspaper China Daily, Obama secured 75% of the votes, a reflection of his huge popularity in the country that shares an important economic relationship with the US, but which is also perceived as the strongest challenger to the US’ power influence in Asia and around the world.

“In China, the perception of the US, particularly among young people, is formed by what they see on American TV, and they’ve seen a lot of black ‘presidents’ on TV,” says Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based Chinese-American and Internet advertising professional.

Most Chinese people in the 18-30 age-group, notes Kuo, have seen the TV show 24, which stars David Palmer as a black president of the US, “so it’s not an idea they’re unused to”. Even so, an Obama win would see the US “rise in the esteem of the Chinese because it will show Americans as a lot less bigoted than the Chinese imagine them to be.”

Leaders wary of change
Grassroots sentiment may prefer a young and charismatic Obama, but leaders of China’s Communist Party would find it easier to work with his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, say analysts. “Traditionally, Republican presidents, with their free-trade agenda, have been very good for China,” says Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China.

Chinese leaders don’t like uncertainty, and are therefore “worried about” Obama for two reasons, he notes. “First of all, they don’t know him well enough, and from what they know he isn’t as much a free-trade proponent as McCain is.” But more important, China knows Obama “is capable of changing the world’s perceptions of the US in a favourable way, and that may work to China’s disadvantage as it competes for power and influence around the world.” 

“Chinese leaders will benefit if the US continues to be bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly now that it is financially weaker than before, because it won’t have the energy or the means to be active in East Asia, leaving the diplomatic field open for China,” says renowned Sinologist Willy Wo-lap Lam, pointing out McCain is more likely to continue the war.

Pro-democracy activist Yang Jianli, who survived the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and was a political prisoner for five years, believes neither will likely challenge China on its human rights record. “When I was in prison, both signed letters of support demanding my release,” recalls Yang. “I hope the next President — whoever he is — will show the same commitment for human rights in China, but I fear that he won’t.” 
US hostility towards China will rise irrespective of the winner

Chang, however, believes that irrespective of who is elected, Sino-US relations are about to enter a challenging phase. “The next president is going to face some very severe constraints in bilateral relations because China is posing a challenge to the international system and it’s becoming clear that it isn’t democratising… When you add in economic competition in an environment where the world’s financial architecture is at risk of crumbling, and you factor in the fundamental differences in values between the two countries, I think China-US relations are in for a very, very difficult period.”

One additional factor, reckons Chang, will be the newly strengthened US-India relationship, “based on shared interest and shared values”, which marks a “historic foreign policy shift that will reverberate in the decades to come.”