Trump accuses PRC of election interference, views of China improve globally, and growth slows
Plus, Xi promotes China's vision for a new global AI order
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.
“We never interfere in US elections and have zero interest in that,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Friday in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims this week of Chinese interference in the 2020 U.S. elections.
Beijing’s measured response, as Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, explained, reflects its view that these accusations are aimed primarily at a domestic audience. Chinese leaders see them as “the actions of a diminishing president of a declining country,” he wrote, adding that “PRC leaders also can read US polling and know that Trump’s approval rating is stuck in the 30s and that his desired election legislation is stuck in Senate.”
With the U.S. set to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping in late September and concerns about retaliation ahead of November’s midterm elections, the fragile U.S.-China truce appears to remain intact, even as reports emerge that Beijing is not following its share of the trade agreement the two countries reached in South Korea last year.
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According to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, “Global views of the United States worsened last year as President Donald Trump’s second term began, though most people still had a more positive opinion of the U.S. than China. This year, that is no longer the case.”
Here are some of the key findings:
In most of the 36 countries surveyed, China is viewed more positively than the U.S. The U.S. is viewed more positively in just six countries: India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Poland, and Israel.
While confidence in both Trump and Xi is generally low, Xi is more favorably viewed across many of the 36 countries surveyed.
More people say the U.S. respects individual freedoms than China, though the gap is narrowing.
Let’s jump into it.
— PC
Through the Lens
In Focus
I. Trump’s election interference claims: “This isn’t a story about China”
The White House appears to be shielding China from scrutiny in President Donald Trump’s push to get to the bottom of what he has declared an official cover-up of Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election.
While Trump said in his Thursday speech to the nation that he had ordered the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to investigate what he calls an official cover-up of China’s activities, there’s so far been no mention of Beijing as a target of that probe or others.
DOJ said in a statement that it’s “following through on the president’s directive,” but declined to comment whether its investigation will extend to Chinese election meddling. The FBI, ODNI and CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This isn’t a story about China,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters Friday. He said the focus of investigations will be on “nefarious actors domestically” who worked to undermine the election’s integrity. The White House declined to comment on whether it plans to go after Beijing for any of the crimes it is alleging.
Democrats are seizing on the lack of action against China as proof that Trump is more interested in using his accusations of an official cover-up of Beijing’s interference to punish perceived political enemies within the intelligence community.
Read: Trump spares Beijing in probe of alleged Chinese election plot (Politico)
II. Target missed
China’s economy in the second quarter expanded at its weakest pace since the fourth quarter of 2022, reinforcing calls for policy stimulus as an accelerating slide in investments deepened the strain on growth, while consumption stayed subdued.
Gross domestic product growth came in at 4.3% in the April to June period, data from the National Statistics Bureau showed Wednesday, missing economists’ forecast for 4.5% growth in a Reuters poll, and slowing from 5% in the first quarter.
That second-quarter growth came below Beijing’s full-year growth target range of 4.5% to 5%, the least ambitious goal in decades, amid tensions with trade partners, including the U.S. and the European Union, and sluggish domestic demand.
Given the disappointing growth, Tianchen Xu, senior economist at Economist Intelligence Unit, expects stimulus measures to be ramped up in the third quarter, including a policy rate cut to stimulate investment demand.
Read: China posts slowest quarterly GDP growth since 2022 as investment slumps (CNBC)
Related:
China bets on faster state-backed projects to shore up growth, avoid broad stimulus (Reuters)
China’s record consumer defaults undermine Beijing’s push to boost spending (Reuters)
Chinese Consumers Tighten Purse Strings Despite Modest Income Gains (Caixin)
China’s graduate glut: millions enter a job market with little use for them (The Guardian)
III. To the moon!
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday cast Beijing as the champion of a new global AI order, using China’s premier tech conference to promote open-source technology and challenge U.S. influence over the rules governing the fast-moving sector.
In a speech to the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Xi urged countries to seize the “historic opportunity” of open-source AI, and pledged to help developing nations build AI capabilities, warning against the emergence of “new historical injustices” from unequal access to the technology.
The remarks amounted to Xi’s clearest articulation yet of China’s ambition to shape global AI governance, framing its open-source models as a global public good and positioning Beijing as an alternative to Washington at a pivotal moment in the race for technological leadership.
Read: Xi pitches China as leader of new global AI order, challenging US dominance (Reuters)
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