20th Party Congress and U.S. Midterm Elections: Implications for U.S.-China Relations

POST-EVENT SUMMARY

On September 20, 2022, the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS) hosted a virtual public event to discuss the upcoming 20^th National Congress of the Communist Part of China as well as the November midterm elections in the United States. The event was titled “20^th Party Congress and U.S. Midterm Elections: Implications for U.S.-China Relations.” Dr. Nong Hong, Executive Director and Senior Fellow at ICAS, delivered the opening remarks, speaking to the importance of the two political events on either side of the Pacific at a time when the hoped-for détente in bilateral relations has been slow to arrive. The discussion was moderated by Mr. Sourabh Gupta, Senior Fellow and Head of ICAS’ Trade n’ Technology program, and featured four speakers: Mr. Robert Daly, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, Dr. Yawei Liu, Senior Advisor, China Focus at the Carter Center, Mr. Rory Murphy, Vice President of Government Affairs at The U.S.-China Business Council, and Dr. Denis Simon, Professor of China Business and Technology & Senior Advisor to the President for China Affairs at Duke University.

The panelists focused their attention on the precarious state of U.S.-China relations at a time when communication channels between the two sides are few, and both countries are absorbed in important election calendar-driven domestic politics. In Washington, the composition of the next Congress remains on a knife-edge, with an earlier expected sweep of both chambers of Congress by the Republicans looking increasingly now to be split between the two parties – with the Democrats keeping hold of the Senate. To the extent that conservative Republicans have very unfavorable views of China, this shift might appear at first glance to be a reprieve for Beijing. It shouldn’t be seen as such. More than 80 percent of Americans hold negative or strongly negative views of China – an unusually high number. And regardless of the composition of the next Congress, the only difference in policy approaches on China among the two parties is one between getting tough and getting even tougher. This hard line on China and the sense of siege that it elicits in Beijing, with knock-on effects on the bilateral relationship, should not be discounted though.

In Beijing, there is no such knife-edge political reckoning on the anvil. With President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term coronation decided-and-(almost)-done, a cult of personality looms large on the political horizon. The contradiction of a China that is increasingly inward obsessed while concurrently focused externally on reaching for global power will be a challenging balancing act to pull off in the years ahead. Speaking to the world in the imperative form, much as it speaks to its own people, will make it harder for the Chinese leadership to reconcile this contradiction. This having been said, there is a realization in Beijing that for the sake of better relations with America and the Western world, domestic politics must become more collective leadership-based, the economy must be repaired, and concerted efforts made to ease tensions with Washington and as well as its own neighbors. Although the expectation is that President Xi Jinping will double-down on the path that he has hewed to over the past decade, the chances that there might be a leavening of China’s approach towards America and the Western world should not be ruled out.