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Whether Harris or Trump, the prospect of a direct China-US conflict is unlikely: expert
- Political scientist Li Cheng says the candidates may take aim at Beijing on the campaign trail but what they do ‘will be different’
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Orange Wangin Beijing
The US and China are unlikely to have a direct conflict regardless of whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the American presidential election, according to a top political scientist on bilateral relations.
But both would take a hard line on Beijing in the race, he said.
Li Cheng, founding director of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre on Contemporary China and the World, said that despite the broad bitterness in America against China, a war with China would not unite the United States, and blaming Beijing too much could backfire in the campaign.
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Li, a former head of the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Centre, also said many US political figures were not as tough on China as they professed to be in public.
“My view is that the Chinese should not take too seriously what they say in the campaign. What they say and what they do will be different,” Li said in an interview with the Post on Monday.
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