CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Spurred by the stock market's wild ride this week, Republican presidential candidates lashed out at China, the world's most populous nation.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker demanded President Barack Obama cancel an impending state visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the next president should "build America's economy, not China's or Mexico's." Billionaire businessman Donald Trump said the U.S. economy needs to "do a big uncoupling pretty soon, before it's too late."
It's rhetoric that doesn't always square with the realities of the relationship between the world's two largest economies, said experts on the United States' ties with China, even if it does make for campaign sound bites.
"When you're in the early phases of the primary season and you don't have a lot in the way of foreign policy bona fides, a surefire applause line is to go to the extreme -- and, in the case of China, that's always a very easy thing to do," said Jon Huntsman, a former Republican governor of Utah and U.S. ambassador to China under Obama.
No candidate went further than Trump, whose pledge to bring back to the U.S. the roughly 2 million jobs lost to China since 1999 is a centerpiece of his campaign. "Not only now have they taken our jobs ... but now they are pulling us down with them," he said Monday after a worldwide slump in stock prices.
But "uncoupling" the U.S. from China as Trump proposes would mean undoing the largest trade relationship in the world: $592 billion in goods and services were exchanged last year. While most of that consists of U.S. imports of Chinese products, China is still the United States' third-largest export market.
Walker said Obama needs to have some "backbone" and call off Xi's planned visit next month -- a response, Walker said, to China's "increasing attempts to undermine U.S. interests."
But the Wisconsin governor didn't say how he would settle issues between the nations without such face-to-face meetings. Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Walker's idea "the nuclear option" of diplomacy.
"You can't just close the door and ... go home," she said. "That's not the way that effective international policy is made."
The Republicans running in 2016 won't be the first to talk tough on China only to face the realities of the relationship once in the Oval Office. It's something Democrats have done, too.
Peter Feaver, a former National Security Council aide to both former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, recalled Clinton in 1992 calling the Chinese government "the butchers of Beijing" -- a reference to protests in Tiananmen Square. But by the end of his first term, Clinton had bestowed "most-favored-nation" status on China.
Glaser said the GOP candidates likely will persist with tough talk on China, because there is no political incentive to do otherwise. Labor unions dislike many international trade deals. U.S. businesses are increasingly disenchanted with China's own protectionist policies. Nongovernmental organizations decry its human-rights record.
Bashing China is a predictable way to win applause, Huntsman said.
"But once you get through the primaries, it doesn't leave you with anything," Huntsman said. "We ought to start from the beginning talking reality, in ways the American people can understand how truly great the stakes are."
Information for this article was contributed by Jill Colvin, Thomas Beaumont, Sergio Bustos, Chris Rugaber and Matthew Pennington of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/29/2015