Trump’s pick for Vice President, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s pick for running mate is J.D. Vance, a memoirist turned senator who has been very critical of China across a range of issues.
Vance has suggested the U.S. military should drop everything and focus on Beijing, called for broad tariffs on Chinese imports and introduced legislation that would restrict the Asian nation’s access to the American financial system.
“I don’t like China,” Vance has said. “I don’t like that China has stolen a lot of American jobs.”
American vice presidents don’t usually play big roles in setting policy and it’s unclear if that would change in a second Trump administration. Still, Vance’s harsh views of Beijing add to signs that if Trump wins in November, his government would again be very tough on the world’s second-biggest economy.
Here’s a look at some of the things Vance has said about China:
Taiwan
Vance has said that a top priority for the U.S. should be preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. He’s highlighted the risks of that scenario to the American economy and accused the Biden administration of failing to do enough to bolster the democratically run archipelago’s defenses.
“The thing that we need to prevent more than anything is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan,” he said in a speech last year at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “It would be catastrophic for this country. It would decimate our entire economy where the computer chips, so much of those are made in Taiwan.”
That stance contrasts with comments Trump made in a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, when he indicated he’s at best lukewarm about standing up to Chinese aggression regarding Taiwan.
Military capacity
Vance has also argued that the U.S. doesn’t have the resources to fight simultaneous conflicts and should focus instead on China.
“We do not have the industrial capacity to support a war in Ukraine, a war in Israel, potentially a war in East Asia if the Chinese invade Taiwan, so America has to pick and choose,” he told Fox News in April.
He has also pushed back against the argument that a show of strength against Russia’s Vladimir Putin deters Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“The Chinese are focused on real power,” he said. “They’re focused on how strong we actually are, and to be strong enough to push back against the Chinese, we’ve got to focus there, and right now, we’re stretched too thin.”
Tariffs & trade
Vance has called for “broad-based tariffs, especially on goods coming in from China,” beyond just solar panels and electric vehicles.
“We need to protect American industries from all of the competition,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation in May. “The reason China beats us, it’s not because they have better workers, it’s because they’re willing to use slaves to make things there.”
That appeared to be a reference to the U.S. accusation that China uses forced labor in its far western region of Xinjiang — a charge that Beijing vehemently denies.
He has also blamed Beijing for problems in the U.S. employment market. “I don’t like China. I don’t like that China has stolen a lot of American jobs,” he said on the same show. “We don’t make enough stuff because we pursue a ridiculous foreign policy very often. We have to be more self-reliant.”
Globalization
The Republican vice presidential nominee has also argued for a “rethink” of globalization, saying it had failed to liberalize countries like China.
The thinking in previous decades was that “if we make China more like us, it will be worth it in the long run,” he told Politico earlier this year. “If that fundamental goal has not materialized, then I think you have to rethink the entire project.”
The Ohio senator has also raised concern about the U.S. losing ground to China in the race to develop advanced technologies, especially if American companies continue to partner with the Asian nation.
“You can’t have technological innovation if you’re offshoring so much of your industry to China,” he told a Senate hearing last year. “If we’re making American industry more expensive and we’re making Chinese industry cheaper, then that strikes me as a really bad deal for American consumers, a really bad deal for American technologists and ultimately a really bad deal for our national security.”
Financial markets
Vance has also introduced legislation aimed at restricting China’s access to U.S. financial markets, especially if it broke laws on finance, trade and commerce.
“If the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t want to play by American rules, they shouldn’t be allowed access to our financial markets,” he said in March. “Ohio workers and our manufacturing industry have suffered the consequences of the CCP’s illegal currency manipulation for far too long. It’s about time we hold them accountable and force them to follow the law.”
Cybersecurity
Vance has expressed concern about Chinese hackers targeting U.S. tech infrastructure. In May, he wrote a letter the the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency about Volt Typhoon, which the U.S. has identified as a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group.
“The impact from a full-scale Volt Typhoon attack on U.S. critical infrastructure would be devastating and could result in our nation being thrown into disarray at the exact time it is under military attack from foreign adversaries,” Vance wrote.
“The consequences of a Volt Typhoon attack would presumably include a threat to the U.S. military by disrupting power and water to our military facilities and critical supply chains.”
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