Political capital [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

The historically expensive presidential campaign in the United States is finally over. Barack Obama won himself a second term. The noisy and messy political game finally comes to an end. With regard to US trade policy towards China, Obama's second term should be better news than the alternative, but still may not be the best for future US-China trade relations. Here are the reasons.

First, this was a remarkable reelection. There has not been a single American president in history to be re-elected with such a high unemployment rate. This makes Obama's future governing more challenging. He has no choice but to try and lead the American economy out of recession. In today's globalized world economy, no single country can succeed by fighting alone or focusing solely on domestic issues. Obama has no choice but to bring US trading partners onto the so-called level playing field. The US's key trading partners cannot be limited to Mexico, Canada and Asian nations such as South Korea and Japan. China must be on top of the list. Working with China is in America's best interests.

Second, Obama has learned firsthand from the experiences of his first term that US-China trade and economic interdependence is increasingly important for both economies. Retaliation, trade sanctions or unilateralism will not be a wise policy serving either US trade with China or the US economic recovery. Jobs in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan may continue to benefit from their voters' preference for the re-elected president, but Obama does not need to offer as much assistance this time. As he has argued during the campaign debate, those low-wage manufacturing jobs won't return to America. Instead, the US should secure and create high-wage, high-skilled jobs in order to sustain its economic power.

Third, Obama's trade policy should be based more on hard economics and less on politics. In his first term, Obama was inevitably fighting to secure votes from the polls, and he even chose to buy votes at risk of jeopardizing US-China trade relations. Both the Huawei and auto tire cases against China prove that politics have played a key role in Obama's trade policy toward China in recent months. However, during his second term, hopefully trade politics on the US government side will be less aggressive than during his first term. If so, the US-China trade relationship can be expected to become more efficient, economically fair and more cooperative.

Fourth, Obama established the new Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China in his first term. There is hope that he will guarantee this institution will continue providing a better forum for productive dialogue between the world's two largest economies. Obama might be tempted to take advantage of China by implementing further trade restrictions against China, but that opportunity will not last long as China will reach market economy status by 2015. There is no reason that Obama should leave a broken US-China trade relationship to the next president.

Fifth, the future direction of China is becoming clearer as its new leaders take office soon. A peaceful globe and a successful world economic recovery will require the involvement of both China and the US. Chinese leaders recognize this, and American officials have to accept this too.

Finally, as history has shown, re-elected American presidents usually tend to shore up US-China trade relations after bilateral relations suffer during their first term. Similar to popular election culture in the US, Presidential candidates often use China-bashing as a political tool to win elections, but after they take office they immediately realize that China-bashing will not work. That is true for President Clinton as well as George W. Bush. Now the game is entering its second phase.

Obama promised he is going to move quickly. We hope that Obama will conduct a thorough China trade policy review, and promote the US-China trade relationship more constructively. We hope that Obama will take a less aggressive stance toward China and expand cooperative economic opportunities. We further hope that, by the end of his second term, an upgraded US-China mutual trust develops that embraces both peoples of these two great nations.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/zhanglijuan.htm

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