China Decode: The World Now Views China More Favorably Than the U.S. (ft. Selina Xu)

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**Alice Han** (1:21)
Welcome to China Decode. I'm Alice Han.

**James Kynge** (1:23)
And I'm James King.

**Alice Han** (1:24)
In today's episode of China Decode, we are discussing Trump's claims that China interfered in US elections, and then we'll chat with Selena Shrew on the latest on the AI race. That's all coming up, but first, let's do a quick check in with how the Chinese markets are starting off the week. On Monday, markets were mixed. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.85 percent, while the tech-heavy Shenzhen component fell 0.71 percent. The CSI 300 was up 1.53 percent. Chinese banks performed well, with ICBC up 2.25 percent, and the Agricultural Bank of China up 3.44 percent. The People's Bank of China kept rates unchanged, which have been at record lows for 14 consecutive months. All right, let's get right into it. President Donald Trump's new claims that China may have interfered in the 2020 US elections are causing backlash within China. China's foreign ministry called the claims, quote unquote, entirely fabricated and aimed at vilifying China. It threatens to upset any advancements the world's powers have made with each other this year.
The news also comes as Pew Polling finds that China is now viewed more favorably around the world than the US is, and that more people have faith in Xi Jinping than Donald Trump.
James, before I get into the startling polling data, which is its own headline story, let's do a bit of an update in the Beijing-Washington relationship. Things look to be pretty smooth sailing from Trump's visit to Beijing in May. But I think we're starting to see some hiccups along the way, largely with this now allegation from Washington that China has been involved in election meddling, mainly political interference in the 2020 election. And Trump is saying that dozens of significant CIA and NSA records show that China was targeting voters during the election.
And although this isn't seen as vote tampering, it's seen as vote influencing. Now the Chinese Foreign Ministry has come out and said that this is basically a fabrication and that China has not been involved in any kind of election interference. But I think the big question I'm still puzzling over is why is Trump picking up on this issue or relitigating an issue six years ago? Obviously this is a source topic for him because he lost that 2020 election. But I don't understand why he's bringing up this topic now two months before, Xi is supposed to go to the US.

**James Kynge** (4:02)
Well, that's a really good question, Alice. I mean, to me, this is more of a US story that concerns China than a China story per se. But I think as you've already alluded to, the key point here for China is, will this allegation by Trump sink the superpower truce that has ensued after the summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May this year? At that time, Xi and Trump agreed to build a, quote, constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability. That was really a key agreement because that meant that the two sides will have this as their guiding framework for the next three years and beyond, and move away from pretty much what was all out suspicion and rivalry that characterized the relationship from probably about 2019 onward. So that was a real moment. At least I regarded it as a real moment in May, and I think a lot of other people did too. So now Trump is coming up with this apparently very serious allegation of election meddling, and so it does raise the question, is this going to bring a premature end to the superpower truce that we saw agree to in May?