US elections: Trump’s Republican heirs show China critics are here to stay
- Nikki Haley among those turning the spotlight on China’s threat to US interests and rules-based world order
- Number of China-related bills introduced to US Congress in 2020 so far has already comfortably exceeded the total for all of 2019
But with both men aged over 70, interest is already shifting to who might run in the next election in 2024. If Beijing was hoping four years will help dilute the ranks of China critics, the signals from the Republican Party, at least, indicate the opposite.
One Republican whose name has popped up as a potential presidential candidate in 2024 is the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. Like others in her party, Haley has become a fierce critic of Beijing since her departure from the Trump administration in 2018.
Speculation about potential 2024 candidates aside – anything could happen in four years – what Haley does represent is a sea-change in Republican Party policy that has identified China as the pressing threat of the times to US interests and a rules-based world order.
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Haley, 48, was given a prime speaking spot on the first night of the Republican Convention on August 24, using the platform to say Democrat presidential nominee Biden would be “great for Communist China”, which she described earlier in the year as a more powerful version of the former Soviet Union.
The ranks of Republicans attacking China stretch beyond Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to senators such as Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn.