Trump loses, Biden wins. How will the interaction between the U.S. and China change? A key figure has surfaced.
On December 9th, US media said that Biden intends to nominate Pete Buttigieg as US Ambassador to China.
Even Americans, not to mention the Chinese, are unfamiliar with him, and many can’t even pronounce his name.
Buttigieg is 38 years old and was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He ran in the Democratic Party primary for the presidential election this year before he had some national name recognition, and after his disastrous defeat in the third leg of the election, he quickly chose to withdraw from the race and instead endorsed Biden.
Biden had an older son, named Bo, who was very good and highly regarded by Biden, and unfortunately died young. Biden once said of Buttigieg, he said, “He reminds me of my son Beau. I know that may not mean much to most people, but to me, it’s the highest compliment I can give to anybody.”
If Buttigieg were to become ambassador to China, what difference would he make to U.S.-China relations?
Any choice anyone makes at any time is based on personal past experience and then combined with the current situation to form a judgment, so instead of speculating about his attitude toward China, let’s find out what kind of a person he really is.
Identity Card One: Harvard Scholar
Buttigieg’s parents are professors at Notre Dame University, a prestigious American university. Buttigieg has been a student since he was a child, and has always been someone else’s child. He won a national award from the Kennedy Library in high school.
Miraculously, Buttigieg’s essay for that year’s award was written by the old-timer Senator Sanders! In his essay, Buttigieg labeled himself a “socialist,” writing, “Many young Americans think politics is hopeless, and Sanders is the only one who can give us the answer.”
After high school, Buttigieg studied at Harvard and Oxford, earning master’s degrees in philosophy, politics and economics. He is no “nerd”, he can play the piano on stage, run a marathon, and master at least seven languages, including self-taught Norwegian from a book, although Chinese is not one of them.
Identity card two: “small town” mayor
With a “glittering” resume, Buttigieg chose to return to his hometown of South Bend.
This is a small city in Indiana, which Newsweek once called one of the “dying cities” in the United States.
In 2011, at the age of 29, Buttigieg was elected mayor. How to save the “dying” hometown? Buttigieg’s thinking and the Chinese are quite similar, that is, “infrastructure”.
The first thing is “demolition”. Buttigieg launched a 1,000-day campaign to restore or demolish 1,000 abandoned houses, tearing down all the dilapidated houses.
The second thing is “build”, Buttigieg’s first year in office, the city of South Bend processed $ 69.8 million in construction permits for projects. Within four years, that figure had grown to $190 million.
Not just to build, but to build beautifully. Buttigieg also launched a $25 million street renovation project, refurbishing downtown’s driveways, sidewalks and even decorative brick.
As the city became cleaner, investment came slowly.
Unemployment in South Bend dropped from 10 percent all the way down to 4 percent, downtown development accelerated, investment poured in, and the population stopped shrinking. So the locals loved Buttigieg and held banners thanking him.
Identity card three: Afghanistan veteran
Being mayor is not Buttigieg’s proudest life experience. In his Twitter profile, the hashtag in front of mayor is: veteran.
In May 2014, Buttigieg put aside his job as mayor and ran off to Afghanistan.
But Buttigieg didn’t “fight and kill” in Afghanistan; he was assigned to a working group to expose corruption in Afghanistan, doing essentially civilian work.
But in 2014, the Obama administration was so busy withdrawing troops from Afghanistan that no one cared about the “corruption issue.
So the Washington Post mocked him, saying that the eager lieutenant had fought in a war that was in retreat, and he ended up being assigned to handle the office computer.
Of course, Buttigieg claims to have done dangerous work, such as driving colleagues to a conference in Kabul.
He says he drove a heavily armed car through the congested streets of Kabul, wearing body armor and carrying an M4 rifle.
Although he has no “war record” to boast about, his Afghanistan experience adds a “highlight” to his résumé: veteran.
Identity card four: LGBT
Buttigieg claims that the important thing about serving in Afghanistan is that it helped him see his life clearly.
What aspect of life did you see? Well… Probably his own non-mainstream sexual orientation.
In June 2015, Buttigieg wrote a media article in which he came out as gay, admitting afterward, “It was probably an act of political suicide.”
Three years later, Buttigieg and Grace Mann, a high school teacher, were married.
Geometric attitude toward China?
Harvard scholar, small town mayor, Afghanistan veteran, LGBT, such experience and background are indeed a bit different from previous ambassadors to China. The previous ambassadors, with the exception of Winston Lord, who was 48 years old when he took office in 1985, were basically “veterans” in their 60s, who had either done diplomacy, had some connections with China, or were politicians who had run big cities or states, like Buttigieg. A “small town mayor” like Buttigieg is the first ambassador to China.
The Council on Foreign Relations has summarized his approach to China in the following terms.
First, he believes that the United States and China can cooperate on issues of common concern, such as climate change, but that China is an ideological challenger to the United States.
Second, the U.S. underestimates China’s ambitions, and the U.S. should “decouple” from China in some sensitive economic areas.
Third, he criticized the Trump administration’s trade war as a “futile exercise” that has hurt American farmers instead.
Fourth, although he does not support the TPP, he believes that the United States must reach a new agreement to compete with China’s “Belt and Road”.
Fifth, he believes that the United States should strengthen its military and use political intervention and cyber attacks to contain China.
Sixth, he called for more investment in infrastructure, education and artificial intelligence to compete with China.
Seventh, on issues related to the border, he advocated for sanctions against some Chinese companies and individuals.
Eighth, he said he would consider boycotting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and said “any means” would be on the table.
It seems that Buttigieg is not friendly to China, but of course, we can not rule out that he said these words at the time, there are campaign canvassing factors.
However, the U.S. media also pointed out that the post of U.S. ambassador to China was not the only option for Buttigieg, who is multilingual, and that the U.S. representative to the United Nations was Buttigieg’s first choice. However, he has indicated to Biden that he is also interested in positions in diplomacy and national security.
The U.S.-China relationship is one of the most important and trickiest bilateral relationships in the world today, so if Buttigieg does become the new U.S. ambassador to China, how will he fare? said that the essence of China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutual benefit and win-win situation. China has always maintained that some issues arising in the economic and trade relations between the two sides should be properly resolved in the spirit of mutual respect and equal consultation.
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