Now that the dust has settled following the U.S. midterm elections, with the Republicans winning a sweeping victory for control of the House and making a hefty gain in the Senate, what will become of Chinese-American relations in the remaining two years of the Obama administration?

During the campaign season, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party put out a lot of advertisements criticizing China. According to these ads, China's rise has accelerated the slump of the U.S. economy and the hike in its unemployment rate. These ads somehow give people an impression that, following the elections, policies will be less favorable toward China.

But this is just not the case. For example, a quite popular conservative ad, the "Chinese Professor," appears to target China by framing it as the frightening future superpower. But its real purpose is to criticize the economic policies of the Democratic government, which, according to the ad, run counter to the traditional American value of free trade. By using China as a guise, the ad is in fact all about partisan politics.

The midterm elections touched little upon foreign policy issues. In sharp contrast to elections during the Bush administration, or even as recent as the 2008 presidential elections, domestic issues took precedence over foreign policy according to public opinion polls. Because foreign policy issues are no longer voters' immediate concern, it is not necessary for the government to make any major readjustments or changes. Moreover, Republicans only took the House, which traditionally has only limited accessibility to foreign affairs, so the power shift will affect mainly domestic policies.

Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. has been generally in agreement on foreign policy. Obama has managed to shift foreign policy focus from the Middle East to East Asia, as well as promoting relations with Russia through a new START treaty to reduce nuclear arms and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. All these factors make it highly improbable for relations between China and the U.S. to experience a major shift at the political level.

However, setbacks may still occur at the ideological level. Democrats and Republicans differ on many issues that were the focus of the midterm elections, such as the size of government and the government's role in the economy. Foreign policies are often an extension of domestic politics, and issues that were prominent during the Bush years – human rights, Taiwan and Tibetan independence – may once again emerge. The rise of the Tea Party, which has been sensationally critical of everything Democrats stand for, may intensify ideological confrontations on democracy, freedom and human rights.

Meanwhile, the new Republican majority in the House may help to smooth out economic issues between China and the U.S. Republicans, often seen as the party of the wealthy and corporations, and who themselves are avid investors in China, would not want to see their own investments shrink and may therefore offset or balance voices of the middle- and lower-classes, which often believe policies such as revaluation of the renminbi will be good for the U.S. Speaker-elect John Boehner has been a staunch supporter of free trade and has condemned bills that condemned Chinese economic practices, such as one on China's illegal subsidies for the coated-paper industry and another on China's currency manipulation.

China and the U.S. will meet at the G-20 Summit and the APEC Summit, and Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit the U.S. at the beginning of next year. By that time, the picture will become clear for relations between the two countries.

The author is an editor of Phoenix TV InfoNews channel. tyoboki@hotmail.com

(This article is translated by LUO Huaiyu)

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