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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
US voters deserve better than China-bashing
    2016-08-15  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Zhu Dongyang

    U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday played the China-bashing card once again in his latest attempt to rectify his falling popularity. The inflammatory rhetoric, however, is dangerous and damaging, and offers nothing substantive in improving relations with China.

    In a speech in Detroit that outlined his economic prescription for America’s economic headaches, Trump alleged that China “breaks the rules in every way imaginable” when trading with the United States, and “is responsible for nearly half of our entire trade deficit.”

    The former property developer pledged to boost the U.S. economy by hindering China’s exports to the U.S. market and renegotiating global trade rules. “Americanism not globalism will be our new credo,” Trump claimed.

    By scapegoating China and global free trade for lackluster economic performance, Trump and his team betrayed the Republicans’ traditional endorsement of unrestricted trade. In a freakish coincidence, Trump shared a similar view with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that Washington shall pursue myopic and poisonous protectionism and will “stand up to China” to make up for lost ground.

    For years, China-bashing has always been an easy card for U.S. politicians to play to cover up the country’ s fundamental structural flaws.

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, traditionally a Republican supporter on trade, said that Trump’s approach would cost 3.5 million U.S. jobs and result in higher prices for American consumers as well as a weaker economy.

    Meanwhile, lashing out at China for U.S. economic frustrations has proven futile. Ironically, the U.S. middle and working classes, to whom Trump and Hillary have been eager to pander, would become the first to take the hit if the U.S. instigated trade barriers against China.

    As the major beneficiary of Sino-U.S. win-win cooperation, Americans have grown accustomed to high-quality and affordable Chinese-made goods. Without their country’s massive trade with China, neither their quality of life nor their country’s advantage in the global industrial chain could be maintained.

    The world has gotten used to generations of U.S. presidential candidates denouncing China in election races. But they usually reoriented their policy with China as soon as they took power and tried instead to cement ties with the Asian country.

    That was true with former Republican President George W. Bush, and Hillary’s once anti-trade husband Bill Clinton, who nevertheless gave China most-favored-nation treatment, which in part contributed to the U.S. economic boom of the 1990s.

    Hopefully, the threat of launching a trade war with China by the current presidential candidates is merely tough talk. China-bashing is a recurring theme every four years, and by now it’s become quite dull. Let’s hope the next time around that future presidential hopefuls will have something more substantial to say about America’s relationship with China as U.S. voters deserve better.

    (The author is a staff writer with Xinhua News Agency.)

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