President Obama has pinned his re-election hopes on a change of policy that threatens trade ties between the two countries
Recent China-targeted initiatives by US President Barack Obama have soured Sino-US relations.
At the just-concluded East Asian Summit, Obama reiterated an increased US presence in Asia and announced a stance on the South China Sea disputes that is at odds with the diplomacy of Beijing on the issue. In his preceding visit to Australia, he also unveiled a plan to station 2,500 US troops in the country within the next five years. These, along with the provocative remarks recently made by the Obama administration on China's renminbi exchange rate and a raft of actions that have harmed China's core interests, including an arms sales package to Taiwan, Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama and Washington's increased anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations against China, have seriously affected the stable development of Sino-US economic and trade relations.
Obama was once viewed by Beijing as a pragmatic US leader, as indicated by his efforts to set up the Strategic and Economic Dialogue mechanism with China and work with Beijing to tackle the global financial crisis and resolve other major global issues. However, the latest developments are an indication that there has been a change in the Obama administration's policy toward China in the face of the US' stubbornly high unemployment rate and weak economic growth.
An escalation in tensions between the US and China is by no means wise at a time when China is the biggest holder of US national debt and its fastest-growing export market. A strengthened economic and trade relationship with China will undoubtedly help the US create more jobs and expedite the pace of its much-needed economic recovery.
Although it has managed to pull out of a lingering recession, the US economy has failed to achieve a sustained recovery. The US' current unemployment rate remains at 9 percent and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects it to stay at around 8.9 percent next year. Plagued by such a high jobless rate, the US' economic growth rate in the third quarter, the most robust among this year's first three quarters, was only 2 percent. According to a September prediction made by the International Monetary Fund, the world's largest economy will have a growth rate of only 1.8 percent next year and will be unable to effectively withstand the effects of any major risks from the outside world. As US pollster Bill McInturff has observed, the average US consumer confidence index is usually 95 when a president wins re-election and 76 when losing the re-election contest. In November, the index was only 55, indicating Obama's prospects for re-election look particularly gloomy.
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