China's Leaders Prefer Republicans, Claims Foreign Policy Expert

While addressing an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) on Monday, Chinese Foreign Policy Expert Yan Xuetong said that it is easier for Chinese leaders to interact with Republicans than Democrats.

“Leadership is very important,” Xuetong explained. “My understanding is that the Chinese leaders feel it is relatively easier to deal with the Republican leaders rather than the Democrat leaders because the Republican leaders … ignore the public opinion. They do not listen to the people. The Republicans do what they like so we know what they want.”

“And the Democrats,” Xuetong continued, “really serve the people’s interest and follow the people’s opinion  - and when people change their opinion, they [Democrat leaders] change their opinion so we can never predict.”

To demonstrate his statement, Xuetong compared the current status of US-China relations to how it was during George W. Bush’s administration.

“Bush has a reputation that is not as good as Obama’s in this country… but he [could] make the relationship stable…Obama cannot stabilize our relationship,” Xuetong said.

Xuetong also stressed that while the US and China will compete economically and educationally, it will not lead to a military competition.

“In 10 years it is possible for China to catch up with U.S in terms of the economy but it will also take another 10 years, possibly 20 years, for China to catch up with the U.S in terms of the military,” Xuetong predicted.

“The competition between the US and China is inevitable. The relationship is going to be intensified,” Xuetong added. “But this kind of competition or conflict will not escalate to a confrontation between China and the U.S like what happened between the U.S and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.”

Yan Xuetong is the dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and president of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Management Board. He is also vice chairman of both the China Association of International Relations Studies and the China Association of American Studies.