Hawkish Hillary or unpredictable Trump: Choice China faces

Unlike Trump, her actions, and those of her seasoned advisors, will be predictable. The Clinton Administration will hit the ground running next January 20th conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea and trying to push China away from a might makes right strategy to that of rule of international law. Her administration will not necessarily encircle China but provide a counterweight to China’s growing economic and military muscle in the region. The DPRK’s growing nuclear capability will also be a front burner issue in which China has a choice to be part of the problem or a partner in reigning in this erratic pariah state.

It took anti-Communist Richard Nixon to establish bilateral relations. Maybe Hillary will have the courage to join China’s visionary One Belt One Road initiative. I am sure she will return to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership and hopefully have the good sense to invite China’s active participation.

Even though Sino-US relations appear tense, President Obama is handing over a rather healthy relationship between the world’s two leading nations. No others have more institutionalized frequent high level bilateral dialogues on issues ranging from economics to warfare to cyber security and the like than our two nations. Great leaps forward have also been made in military-to-military communications and all these should continue to be further enhanced by President Clinton. Sino-US cooperation as exemplified by joint leadership on the Paris Climate Change Agreement will continue and this is further evidence that we can work within a new great power relationship. (Trump doesn’t even believe that environmental problems are man-made!) Clinton can finally conclude the long negotiated Bilateral Investment Treaty which significantly opens each country's markets to the other.

With Hillary we get an invaluable freebie with Bill Clinton. And having a woman in the White House, instead of a misogynist, will prove Mao Zedong correct that “women hold up half the sky”. And it will give hope to girls in China and elsewhere that their dreams can be limitless and they can aim for the stars. Having a Trump presidency makes me wish that Elon Musk’s rockets to Mars were an escape option today as I don't think nuclear radiation from Trump’s itchy finger can travel that far!

The author is a senior adviser to Tsinghua University and former director and vice-president of ABC Television in New York.