It's the China Virus

 

All my Chinese students, surprisingly, and all my friends in the Philippines, seem to support Trump.

Why? Trump seems to want to be tougher on China than the Democrats.

One student today tried to explain. The bottom line is that they believe Trump means peace. He may fight China economically, but he does not want war. They appreciate that. Of course all American presidents are for America, not for China, But they don’t want chaos.

And, my correspondent says, although Trump is tough on China in trade talks, Trump’s economic sanctions against China do not really seem to have been a big problem. He forced them to buy a huge quantity of American soybeans. A year later, Covid hit, and China was lucky to have those soybeans. Okay, he kept Huawei out of the US market; Huawei is now bigger than ever. 

Perhaps these trade concessions were actually better for China. After all, what was lost by Chinese producers was generally gained by Chinese consumers.

As a Canadian, I had the same feelings about Trump’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was hoping the Americans would force the Canadian government to drop their egg and milk price-fixing. It would have been of great benefit to the Canadian consumer.

Beyond that, my student says, the Chinese find Trump humorous, and always interesting. They are accustomed to not taking anything at face value, and therefore do not get agitated by his rhetoric. They probably understand this, and get his sense of humour, better than Americans do: it is about face, about bargaining. You bargain for everything in China. You do not take it personally. Of course he is all about America first, but they think he is generally well-disposed enough towards China. And very funny.

This bodes well, I think, for Trump genuinely bringing about a period of peace and prosperity.