Opinion | US election: how China’s actions during the presidential transition could make or break Sino-US relations

The presidential transition has the potential either to lock US-China relations into a dangerous downward spiral or lay the groundwork for a reduction in tension

The decisions made by the outgoing administration and the signals sent by the incoming one will be important. But China’s behaviour at this time is also a key variable in the equation

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Published: 1:15am, 10 Sep 2020Updated: 1:30am, 10 Sep 2020

Now that Joe Biden has named his running mate and both US political parties have held their conventions, the 2020 election campaign is under way in earnest. The ups and downs of the summer have been just a prelude to the electoral battle of the next two months.

In America’s arcane electoral college system, a handful of swing states will determine the outcome. Within those states, both parties are vying to attract undecided voters, to motivate their supporters to vote and, in some cases, to discourage the other side’s voters from showing up on election day.

The 2016 campaign showed that polls asking how people would vote could be off the mark, even close to election day. Instead, a more reliable indicator of an incumbent’s re-election prospects is whether people think the country is heading in the right direction.

As of August 26, a stunning 65 per cent of all registered voters in a poll said the country was on the wrong track. This leaves US President Donald Trump in a weak position for an incumbent. His plan to build a campaign around his success in growing the economy has been undercut by the effects of Covid-19. And his efforts to downplay the pandemic are undermined by the flood of new cases and fatalities touching citizens throughout the country.

Although foreign policy has rarely been a decisive factor in presidential elections, both campaigns are weaponising the issue of China. For Trump, attacks on China serve to deflect blame and attention away from his handling of Covid-19. But his “kung flu” campaign hasn’t changed voters’ minds about his handling of the pandemic – 68 per cent disapproved of his response in another recent poll.

And Trump’s attacks on Biden for being soft on China have prompted Democrats to hit back at Trump’s own record of praising Chinese President Xi Jinping, and to ensure that they take a suitably hardline position on China.