As the GOP candidates for a Missouri U.S. Senate seat rush to the starting line next week, you’d expect them to be fighting over who can best tackle rising inflation, crime, critical race theory and other touchstone Republican issues. Instead, they’re focusing on another target — China.
Most of the candidates vying to replace Roy Blunt, the retiring GOP Missouri senator, call China a growing military, economic and public health threat. And they’ve vowed in person and through online videos to strike back if elected.
Anti-China messages have resonated with an electorate sensitized to the debate over the origins of Covid-19, the impact of industrial outsourcing to China and increasing military tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Ahead of the Feb. 22 filing opening, the contest has become a preview of how U.S. politicians may weaponize public antipathy toward China as a campaign focus in November’s midterms and the 2024 presidential race.
“Republican candidates have really latched on to the issues that create the greatest fear among that potential constituency and one of them clearly is fear of China, whether it is because of the pandemic, economic issues, or fear of war,” said Anna Crosslin, retired president and CEO of the International Institute, an immigration hub in St. Louis. “[China is now] the wedge issue to ‘out-conservative’ the next candidate.”
Former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned amid sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations, and Attorney General Eric Schmitt are the race’s front-runners. Political action committees supporting them recently released dueling campaign videos that slammed the opposing candidate’s record of engagement with China. The negative ads single out policy initiatives and activities once routine for state politicians but are now pitched as suspect or disloyal.
The Greitens PAC video calls out Schmitt for his support as state senator in 2011 of the St. Louis Lambert International Airport Aerotropolis “China Hub” designed to make the city the axis of air cargo between China and the Midwest. The ad’s kicker: “Eric Schmitt: Good for China. Bad for Missouri.”
The Schmitt PAC video slams Greitens for an appearance on Chinese state television during an official visit to Beijing as governor in 2017. The ad’s kicker: “Eric Greitens: Good for China. Bad for Missouri.”
Schmitt’s campaign declined to respond directly to a written question from POLITICO about criticism of his support for the “China Hub” plan. The campaign instead issued a written statement from Schmitt’s communications director, Charli Huddleston, that stated in part that “Missourians deserve a Senator with a proven track record of putting America first and standing up to China.”
Three of the other candidates — St. Louis lawyer Mark McCloskey and U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long — contend that China is bent on global domination with Long linking the Chinese Communist Party to the rise of critical race theory and “cancel culture” in the U.S.
It might not be a surprise that the candidates’ anti-China rhetoric is catching on in Missouri, where former President Donald Trump remains popular. Trump, who won the state by 15 points in 2020, disparaged China for much of his term in office. Five of the six candidates — the exception being State Senator Dave Shatz — model themselves as Trump-friendly MAGA warriors.
Schmitt even tried to sue the Chinese government in April 2020 for “misrepresentations, concealment, and retaliation” regarding the emergence and severity of Covid-19. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang responded by saying the lawsuit “only invites ridicule.” A month later, Chinese state-affiliated news platform Global Times reported that Beijing was mulling retaliatory sanctions against Schmitt. Long and McCloskey also have called for probes into Covid’s possible Chinese origins.
Long goes one step further by asserting that the Chinese government has knowingly allowed the export to the U.S. of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. Synthetic opioids killed more than 64,000 Americans from April 2020 to April 2021, according to the CDC. The bulk of the illegal synthetic opioids that reach the U.S. are sourced in China by Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
Hartzler’s campaign touts her experience as a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and her congressional web page links to four videos outlining the danger, as she sees it. “China is the number one [threat] that America is facing from a foreign adversary,” Hartzler said.
Hartzler has also hammered Greitens for his appearance on Chinese state television. Greitens told POLITICO he couldn’t recall exactly what he said in the interview, but all aspects of the trip were to “advance the economic interests of the people of Missouri.”
Missouri Democrats have joined the fray. Democratic Senate hopeful Lucas Kunce released an ad in November attacking Schmitt for his “China hub” plan, Greitens for his CCTV appearance and Hartzler for accepting a $1,000 campaign donation from Smithfield Foods, a subsidiary of Chinese-owned WH Group.
The Missouri GOP primary, to be held in August, has caught the attention of the Chinese government, which said it believes the candidates are not in sync with American public opinion.
“We are not interested in the electoral politics in the United States, but we firmly oppose some politicians hyping up ‘China threat’ in their campaigns to gain attention and votes,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., told POLITICO in an emailed statement. “These remarks cannot fully represent the American people’s attitude toward China [and] we hope these politicians can have a correct stance and a rational view of China’s development and China-U.S. relations.”
Candidates’ arguments about China’s malign impact on Missouri’s economy aren’t supported by the data. Missouri’s goods’ exports to China — mostly oilseeds and meat products — totaled $1.7 billion in 2020, making China the state’s third-largest export destination behind Mexico and Canada, according to a recent U.S.-China Business Council report. China is also Missouri’s third-largest destination of service exports, valued at $796 million in 2019.
Missouri has also been relatively insulated from the impact of job losses linked to industrial outsourcing to China. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., concludes that the state has recorded a loss of 2 percent of its total employment base due to China outsourcing from 2001-2018. It places Missouri 30th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. in the severity of that impact.
The primary’s China focus has a nasty predecessor in GOP Sen. Josh Hawley’s successful 2016 race for Missouri attorney general against state Sen. Kurt Schaefer. A campaign ad featured a sinister-looking pair of Mandarin-speaking Asians crowing about their ability to purchase Missouri farmland and ending with a voice-over urging voters to “Tell Kurt Schaefer: Stop helping the Chinese buy our farms.” (The ad, which was produced by the nonprofit conversative political organization Tea Party Patriots, never mentions Hawley and his campaign denied any connection to it.) On Saturday, Hawley endorsed Hartzler in a tweet that praised her for possessing “the integrity, the heart, and the toughness to represent MO.”
Advocates for Missouri’s Asian American community warn that such rhetoric is dangerous. Caroline Fan, president of the Missouri Asian American Youth Foundation, noted that Missouri’s Asian community constitutes a swing vote that GOP Senate candidates risk alienating. Eligible voters among Missouri’s Asian American, Hawaiian American and Pacific Islander population rose 44 percent from 2012 to 2018 and now make up 2.7 percent of the state’s voting-age population.
“When our elected officials just continue to engage in xenophobia, and in stoking fears of the Yellow Peril,” Fan said, “it is very harmful.”
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By: Phelim Kine
Title: A heartland GOP primary battle goes all-in on bashing China
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2022/02/16/a-heartland-gop-primary-battle-china-00009095
Published Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2022 04:30:00 EST
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