(Forbes) Like your garden variety Democrat, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is using human rights as a way to go after foreign countries. First target: China.
If she wins the presidency next November, China investors might have it even harder with Warren than they currently do with President Trump.
Worse yet, China isn’t the only country that the human rights hawk is targeting in her Twitter commentary this month.
On October 3, Warren took to Twitter to sing her line in the Party chorus against Trump. She then posted a picture of Hong Kong activists in black dust masks holding signs reading “Don’t Shoot Our Kids” following the police shooting of a 14 year old last week. In that post, Warren gave a clue as to how she views the autonomous region’s ongoing protests against the Communist Party, saying the U.S. needed a President who stood up for American values. Those values, of course, are human rights and protecting the protesters’ wish for Democracy.
Does this mean a Warren win is bad for China? You bet. It may not be a war with bombs, but a Warren presidency seems to be setting the table for a return to America as fighter for global Democracy. A kinder, gentler regime change.
Trump has been quiet on using sanctions against China or, worse, against the Hong Kong government over police crackdowns during protest rallies. The rallies have been going on and off since spring.
Warren, however, has boxed herself into a corner in one Tweet. If Hong Kong protesters see her as someone they can count on to “stand up for American values”, they might protest even more in hopes that Warren’s Washington comes to their rescue. What that would look like is anyone’s guess. Sanctioning individuals won’t do much except maybe stop them from accessing their dollar wealth abroad. Or sending their kids to Harvard.
The real power of sanctions comes from stripping Hong Kong of its special trading status with the U.S., a status that greatly benefits Beijing thanks to dollar flow from Hong Kong (their currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar). Moreover, and though this has never been proven, it is not hard to imagine mainland China using Hong Kong ports as an end-around tariffs.
Easy access to dollars and lower tariffs would be gone if that special trading status was cancelled by Congress in order to pressure Hong Kong authorities.
But pressure them to do what? Release prisoners? Is that all the protesters want?
No. They want much more than that. And what they want the U.S. cannot deliver. Probably neither can Hong Kong. The big picture desire is a Hong Kong free of Communist Party rule. Beijing will have full control over Hong Kong in 2047, ending the One Country, Two Systems policy that’s been in place since the British hand-over in 1997. Will China let Hong Kongers vote for their own leaders, rather than give them a few people to pick from? If so, what will China do in 2047? Strip Hong Kongers of the voting rights they enjoyed for 27 years? Or does China follow Hong Kong and allow its people to vote, giving the Communist Party some real competition?
Hong Kong has recently descended into a vicious circle of violence, leading to more frequent fighting between police and civilians. Assuming the goal is for even greater autonomy from China, then it is hard to see where this ends. Events have pushed the One Country, Two Systems policy to a breaking point.
President Xi Jinping seems to be drawing lessons from the supposed deal that the Chinese people once made with its government: forego political freedoms in exchange for vast improvements in material well-being. The people of Hong Kong – for the most part – already have material well being.
“They’re unlikely to go gentle into that good night,” says Brian McCarthy, chief strategist for Macrolens, an investment research firm focused on China.
Regarding “political freedoms”, Warren is free to say anything she wants. She is not running a trade war against America’s biggest trading partner. Trump has attack dogs in the Senate, such as Marco Rubio, armed with legislation just waiting to sanction Hong Kong or China for human rights issues. He could signal his willingness to sign something like that in a Tweet.
China is sending trade negotiators to Washington later this week. Punishing Beijing for the actions of the Hong Kong police is a sure-fire way to shut down trade talks, giving markets another panic attack.
Warren is turning out to be the biggest hawk on the Democratic Party ticket. Human rights are what keep her claws sharp.
Two days after lambasting Trump for not spreading American values in Hong Kong, Warren was at it again. This time regarding the disputed area of Kashmir, between India and Pakistan.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would no longer recognize it as an autonomous region and would now be part of India. Pakistan is not happy about that.
India is trying to become an alternative to China for global export manufacturers. It’s cutting taxes heavily. It’s looking to sign a trade deal with the U.S. Would Warren upend all that over Kashmir, too? She might not want to. But like Xi, Modi will not want to be lectured on values either.
Between promises of higher taxes and Warren’s willingness to use human rights as a means to target China and perhaps even India, it goes without saying that she is the biggest political risk on the Democratic Party ticket.
Should Warren get the nod, and ultimately beat Trump next year, as some polls suggest, investors will learn to live with her just as they have learned to live with a protectionist Trump.
For Xi Jinping, if he thinks getting rid of Trump brings things back to the good ole days, he should pay closer attention to Warren’s views on Hong Kong to see where this relationship is heading.
