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A man draped in a flag displaying “A.A.P.I. lives matter” attends a candlelight vigil in New York’s Times Square, January 18, 2022.
An article by Robert Kuttner has sparked a debate about U.S.-China policy and politics. This piece is part of that debate; you can read the counterpoint here.
In the past month, a controversy has broken out concerning how Democrats should handle narratives about China, which are becoming increasingly prominent in U.S. politics. This controversy was triggered by an ad from the Tim Ryan campaign for U.S. Senate in Ohio, which features a series of clips in which Ryan blames China for a series of economic problems in Ohio, including joblessness and price increases. Ryan’s lines include “China is winning and workers are losing” and “It’s us versus China.” Ryan likely hopes that in a state that Trump won by 8 percent in 2020, he can use this “tough on China” message to persuade enough Trump voters to flip to him in order to win in November.
AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) organizations, such as AAPI Victory Fund and Asian American Midwest Progressives (AAMP), and AAPI leaders such as Rep. Grace Meng have claimed that the ad reflects poor strategy and stokes anti-Asian racism. Union members, rural organizing coalitions, and political-messaging strategists have echoed these criticisms.
The Ryan campaign has so far rejected demands to withdraw the ad. Regardless, this controversy has opened up a new line of debate within the Democratic Party and among progressives.
Much of the discussion has focused on the charge of racism. This includes a recent article here in The American Prospect, in which Robert Kuttner defended the Ryan campaign. Research suggests that Ryan’s critics are correct to be worried that “blame China” rhetoric feeds anti-Asian racism, which has been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic. But I also want to highlight that Ryan’s “tough on China” messaging strategy is counterproductive for Democrats.
ASIDE FROM THE ANTI-ASIAN racism argument, critics of the Ryan ad have made two other related points. First, the ad shifts blame away from the power of large corporations and the politicians who advance their anti-worker agenda. Second, this messaging strategy feeds the GOP narrative strategy, alienating AAPI voters and others. (AAPI voters are a rapidly growing bloc in Ohio and many other states.) As an open letter released by AAMP states, “This is not just cynical; it is also short-sighted.”
In support of these claims, communications researcher Anat Shenker-Osorio referred to research in 2020 that tested ads with a similar “blame China” or “tough on China” messaging strategy. The ads attempted to attack Trump for being too conciliatory toward China in his COVID response. The researchers found that the ads backfired and pushed conflicted voters toward Trump. Why? Because shifting blame onto China for COVID promoted a “blame China” narrative that makes voters want to look for who they can trust to be “tough on China”—and this pushes them to the right. The research also found that the messaging strategy strengthened xenophobic anti-Chinese sentiments, which again pushes voters to the right.
The messaging strategy in the Ryan ad falls into the same trap. As Shenker-Osorio put it, “When you sell opponents’ problem diagnosis—you make voters want their cure, not yours.”
It is important to be clear on how crucial scapegoating China has become to GOP political strategy. Last year, the powerful Republican Study Committee, whose members include the majority of House Republicans, issued a strategy memo that argues that the GOP has a historic opportunity to become the “party of the working class,” and thereby retake power.
Historical and current GOP policy positions should make this seem like a curious ambition. The GOP staunchly opposed President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which delivered enormous benefits to the working class, and has so far stopped the rest of Biden’s bold and popular pro-labor agenda, including increases to the minimum wage, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, and job creation programs, including in the Build Back Better social-spending agenda. On policy, the GOP remains committed to being the party of the bosses and of corporate power. So how can it claim to be the party of the working class?
The RSC memo argues that the GOP can do this by shifting the blame for the problems faced by U.S. workers onto China, and away from corporate lobbyists and the Republicans in Congress who serve them most faithfully. The memo recommends: “Republicans should state clearly: Our opposition to China is a corollary of our support for working Americans.”
Republicans know that they have a structural advantage when it comes to voters looking for a “tough on China” candidate. If they can convince enough voters to scapegoat China for working-class problems, and successfully use this to distract voters from their anti-worker record, then they can use their anti-China brand to sell themselves as the party of the working class. GOP candidates are now pursuing this strategy. A recent survey of social media ads found that “China dominates early midterm ads,” most of them from Republican candidates.
Democrats can counter this strategy by bringing the conversation back to the pro-worker policies that have become part of the mainstream Democratic agenda under Biden, and by demonstrating solidarity with the inspiring worker organizing at corporate giants like Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple. From this position, they can go on offense against Republican opponents and expose their anti-worker, pro-corporate agenda. As a number of Ryan’s critics have noted, his ad failed to do this, and instead joined Republicans in promoting their narrative, which scapegoats China for the problems facing U.S. workers. This is bound to backfire.
Resisting the GOP’s anti-China scapegoating is not just the principled, anti-racist thing to do. It is also strategically necessary.
AT THIS POINT, Kuttner might object that, even if we grant these points about narrative strategy, it remains true that Democrats must provide policy solutions to problems in the U.S.-China economic relationship. I agree, but I think Kuttner’s economic nationalism leads him astray.
Kuttner, like Ryan, is especially concerned with China’s role in U.S. deindustrialization. But deindustrialization is a systemic problem across advanced and developing economies; fundamentally, it is not something any one country does to another. In China as well, manufacturing employment has been declining since 2014, due to similar causes as in the U.S.: rising productivity, a shift from manufacturing to the service sector, and outsourcing to other countries.
Scapegoating China for this shared problem is bad analysis and leads to self-destructive reactions. For example, the trade war Trump initiated with China backfired in the U.S., contributing to job losses, a manufacturing recession, and a wave of farm bankruptcies. Workers in both countries suffered from being pitted against one another. Any strategy that pursues zero-sum competition with China over manufacturing jobs, when manufacturing employment is shrinking in both countries, is doomed to failure.
What we need is a transformation of the global economy that lifts up all workers in all sectors and in all countries. The destinies of U.S. workers are tied together with the destinies of the global working class. There are certainly Chinese economic policies that adversely affect workers in China, the U.S., and elsewhere, but these must be dealt with with a view to win-win solutions that will benefit all workers, and not from a standpoint that sees Chinese economic success as an inevitable threat to U.S. workers.
We can start by extending familiar pro-worker policies across borders, including higher standards for wages and labor rights, as well as Green New Deal–style industrial policy that will combat climate change and create good jobs on a global scale. This requires rejecting the now dominant position, shared by Kuttner, that embraces industrial policy in the U.S. while attacking it in China and other developing countries—a piece of inconsistency that has been noticed in other countries and undermines U.S. credibility abroad.
I want to conclude by agreeing with Kuttner that criticizing the Chinese government should not be out of bounds. The problem is specifically with narratives that scapegoat China for problems in U.S. society and exaggerate the threat that China poses to people in the U.S. As the AAMP open letter puts it: “We understand legitimate criticisms of the Chinese government are valid and necessary. However, the decision to stoke fear and anger against an inflated China threat is dangerous and unacceptable—and a losing strategy for Democrats.”
