By Simone McCarthy, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) – The winner from the US presidential election could have a major impact on the contentious relationship between the world’s two largest economies and rival powers.

But in Chinawhere election news is filtered through states and heavily censored social media, the focus has been more on spectacle than substance – with the sense that no matter who wins, tensions The US-China relationship will remain

“For us ordinary Chinese, whoever becomes the US president, whether it’s candidate A or candidate B, it’s the same,” Beijing resident Li Shuo told CNN before the polls opened.

Part of the reason for this may be a consensus in China — from policymakers to ordinary citizens — that the dice are rolling for a US administration that wants to coerce The rise of China on the world stagewhether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins.

Trump’s last term saw the Republican beats tariffs on hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods, launch a campaign against Chinese telecom giant Huawei and use racist language to describe the virus that causes Covid-19, which was first identified in China.

The past four years under President Joe Biden have seen a shift in tone and an effort to stabilize communication. But US concern about China’s threat to its national security has only deepened with Biden targeting Chinese technology industries with investment and export controls as well as rates while also seeming to go around Long-standing US policy in how it has expressed support for Taiwan – a “red line” issue in its relationship with Beijing, which claims the autonomous island democracy as its own.

Meanwhile, the people of China saw their economic prospects dim as the country has struggled to fully recover from its strict pandemic controls amid a broader slowdown and housing crisis, among other challenges.

So while the presidential campaigns continue to play out in China’s daily news coverage and online chatter, interest in the candidates and their policies appears low compared to previous US elections.

“(It doesn’t matter who it is (who wins),” one social media user wrote in a popular comment on the Chinese platform Weibo. “China’s conditioning will not get any easier.”

Following the “turbulence”

As the campaigns unfolded in recent months, Beijing’s state media focused on social discord and polarization in the US.

In recent days, the top post under the “US Election” hashtag on Weibo has been about American concerns about potential post-election violence. The post, by an offshoot of state broadcaster CCTV, cites survey data from US media.

A recent one cartoon in the state-run China Daily, broadcast in domestic media, showed the Statue of Liberty being crushed in the jaws of a dragon labeled “political violence”.

“All walks of life in the United States are extremely nervous and public opinion is in turmoil,” reporters from the state-run Xinhua news agency wrote in a recent shipmentwhich also noted that “as political polarization and divisions in public opinion have intensified in this year’s US elections, so has political violence.”

A Xinhua-affiliated magazine alternatively described the election as “hopeless”, ultimately decided by the “invisible forces” of power such as Wall Street.

Some nationalist bloggers have at times published videos and posts gleefully depicting what they describe as the potential for a post-election American “civil war” — rhetoric echoed in discussions on the heavily censored and largely dominated social media platform Weibo by nationalist voices. .

While taking up the genuine concerns reported by the US and international media in what has been a dispute and violent US election cyclethe coverage and conversation seems geared to telegraph the superiority of China’s own political system. There, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has an iron grip on power and political discourse.

But despite the coverage, many in China also took a close look at the democratic process – and pointed out the contrast with their own.

“There is no perfect system, but at least they allow people to question them,” said one social media user on Weibo.

The candidate of choice?

Both Harris and Trump have been hot topics on social media platforms in China.

Harris appeared to be relatively unknown to Chinese social media users before becoming the Democratic nominee after Biden’s retirement in July from the race.

Since then, many posts and videos on Tiktok’s sister video app Douyin have mocked the vice president, for example laughing at him — in line with what is often a chauvinistic tone on Chinese social media platforms and echo. comments made by Trump himself.

However, some posted clips of Harris’ speeches are taking a positive turn. They point to her middle-class background and rise to the second-highest American office, a contrast to today’s China, where the top echelons are stacked with men who often come from elite political families.

“This is a true story of an ordinary person,” read one comment with hundreds of likes posted under a video clip of a recent speech by Harris.

Trump has sometimes captured ironic admiration on the Chinese Internet. As president he earned his nickname Chuan Jianguoor “Trump, the (Chinese) nation builder” — a joke to suggest that his isolationist foreign policy and divisive domestic agenda were helping Beijing overtake Washington on the global stage.

But after the tumult of the past eight years, Trump fever appears to have cooled.

“People are not optimistic about these two candidates … because their image and skills cannot compare with those of previous figures,” said Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. This is one reason why the level of Chinese public interest in this election seems lower than in the previous two votes, he said.

“The second reason, and perhaps more important, is that many believe that no matter who is elected, relations between the US and China will not improve anyway,” Wu told CNN. “This is also significant background.”

View from above

Whoever wins the U.S. race, Communist Party leaders are likely to expect little improvement in strained ties, analysts said.

“Looking ahead, regardless of whether Harris or Trump becomes the next US president, the continuity of US policy towards China will almost certainly outweigh any potential major changes,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Beijing is careful not to directly comment on any point of view on the election, but he probably sees Trump as bringing more uncertainty – and therefore risk – to the relationship. The former president has threatened tariffs of more than 60 percent on all imports from China and is known for his volatile foreign policy.

But Beijing could see benefits in doing so if it weakens US partnerships overseas, observers say. The Biden administration has sought to work more closely with allies in Europe and Asia to counter what it sees as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order” — China, while Trump has asked repeatedly traditional US alliances.

Chinese leaders will also be watching closely how the Trump presidency handles the war in Ukraine – with Beijing likely wary that he will take steps to repair US relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the global stage. The end of that war – which Trump has claimed he can deliver quickly – would also likely bring more US attention to the Asia-Pacific, which China does not want to see.

But Trump is still seen in Beijing political circles as likely to lead to a more volatile relationship with China than Harris would.

The vice president is expected to follow a similar path to the one taken by Biden — maintaining pressure on China to limit the development of its technology and military, but trying to maintain an open exchange and dialogue.

“That means there will be a mixture of tension, friction and some limited degree of exchange and cooperation … (while) Trump would present greater challenges to US-China relations. The main problem is that (Trump) is handling US-China relations in an unconventional manner, without a sense of proportion and boundaries,” Wu said in Shanghai.

“The most you can say is that the challenges to the relationship will vary depending on who is in office.”

CNN’s Nectar Gan contributed to this report.

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