BEIJING: Donald Trump has frustrated and enraged China during a tumultuous first term, but Beijing may welcome his re-election as it scans the horizon for the decline of its superpower rival.
Relations are as icy as at any time since formal ties were established four decades ago, with China warning it does not want to be drawn into a new "Cold War” with the United States.
Under his ‘America First’ banner, Trump has portrayed China as the greatest threat to the United States and global democracy.
He has launched a massive trade war that has cost China billions of dollars, harangued Chinese tech firms and lay all the blame for the pandemic with Beijing.
But another Trump triumph in November may have its advantages for China as President Xi Jinping seeks to cement his nation’s rise as a global superpower.
China’s leadership could be handed "the opportunity to boost its global standing as a champion for globalisation, multilateralism, and international cooperation,” said Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations, Bucknell University.
Trump has pulled America from a sprawling Asia-Pacific commercial deal and climate agreements, imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on Chinese goods, and withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization at the height of a global pandemic.
Where the US has retreated, Xi has stepped forward.
He has presented his country as the champion of free trade and a leader in the fight against climate change, as well as vowed to share any potential Covid-19 vaccine with poorer nations.
"A second Trump term could give China more time to rise as a great power on the world stage,” Zhu said. Philippe Le Corre, a China expert at the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, agreed an extension of Trump’s ‘America First’ policies would be of long-term benefit for Beijing.
"(It) partially cuts Washington off from its traditional allies,” he added, and that gave China room to manoeuvre. China’s nationalists have openly cheered, or jeered, for Trump.
"You can make America eccentric and thus hateful for the world,” Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a chest-beating nationalist paper, warned in a Tweet directed at the US president.
"You help promote unity in China.” Trump is also lampooned on China’s heavily censored social media as ‘Jianguo’, meaning "help to build China”.
Trump has undoubtedly inflicted economic and political pain on China.
Relations are as icy as at any time since formal ties were established four decades ago, with China warning it does not want to be drawn into a new "Cold War” with the United States.
Under his ‘America First’ banner, Trump has portrayed China as the greatest threat to the United States and global democracy.
He has launched a massive trade war that has cost China billions of dollars, harangued Chinese tech firms and lay all the blame for the pandemic with Beijing.
But another Trump triumph in November may have its advantages for China as President Xi Jinping seeks to cement his nation’s rise as a global superpower.
China’s leadership could be handed "the opportunity to boost its global standing as a champion for globalisation, multilateralism, and international cooperation,” said Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations, Bucknell University.
Trump has pulled America from a sprawling Asia-Pacific commercial deal and climate agreements, imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on Chinese goods, and withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization at the height of a global pandemic.
Where the US has retreated, Xi has stepped forward.
He has presented his country as the champion of free trade and a leader in the fight against climate change, as well as vowed to share any potential Covid-19 vaccine with poorer nations.
"A second Trump term could give China more time to rise as a great power on the world stage,” Zhu said. Philippe Le Corre, a China expert at the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, agreed an extension of Trump’s ‘America First’ policies would be of long-term benefit for Beijing.
"(It) partially cuts Washington off from its traditional allies,” he added, and that gave China room to manoeuvre. China’s nationalists have openly cheered, or jeered, for Trump.
"You can make America eccentric and thus hateful for the world,” Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a chest-beating nationalist paper, warned in a Tweet directed at the US president.
"You help promote unity in China.” Trump is also lampooned on China’s heavily censored social media as ‘Jianguo’, meaning "help to build China”.
Trump has undoubtedly inflicted economic and political pain on China.