Irony has been a fundamental principle governing Mitt Romney's campaign this election season. But it is the Chinese media calling out Mitt Romney for his hypocrisy, doing the American media's job for it. They boldly go where no American media will.
The Romney campaign, facing internal grumbling and amid rumors of a shift in its focus in response to criticism from conservatives, has announced a rightward shift in its strategy. They have announced it is no longer the economy stupid, but now will focus on, of all things, policy.
The shift, which is to include much more emphasis on Romney’s policy prescriptions, means he is scrapping the most basic precept of his campaign. From the time he began contemplating running again after his loss in the 2008 primaries, Romney’s theory of the case has been a relentless and nearly exclusive focus on the listless economy.
But with polls showing Obama for the first time moving clearly ahead in important swing states— most notably, Ohio—Romney advisers concluded they had to make a painful course correction.
Stevens said the economy is likely to remain “the dominant focus” of the campaign. But ads and speeches will focus on a wider array of issues, including foreign policy, the threat from China, debt and the tone in Washington
.
Romney's new policies will come down hard on China as cheaters and label them as currency manipulators. From Romney's new ad, "The Romney Plan" (wanrning: autoplay) he gets in the weeds on the specifics:
“My plan is to help the middle class,” Romney says in the ad. “Trade has to work for America. That means crack down on cheaters like China. It means open up new markets.”
Never mind that while possibly playing well to a small segment of the manufacturing sector, this could badly
damage the US economy.
But there’s fear that Romney’s threat — if actually carried out — could damage the U.S. economy. The Chinese could retaliate by slashing purchases of U.S. debt, driving up our interest rates. Any new tariffs on Chinese exports would also increase prices for U.S. consumers, who have grown accustomed to cheap Chinese goods filling U.S. store shelves. Branding China a currency manipulator also could stop cooperation in other areas of dispute and force all disagreements to go before the WTO, which could take years to reach a ruling of uncertain consequences.
“What would happen is we would badly damage our relations with the Chinese while also raising the question of consistency regarding other nations that also manage their currency,” said Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration economic adviser and spokesman.
Beyond the harm this could do to the American economy, it is the Chinese
media that takes Romney to task and calls him out for the hypocrisy his statements harbor.
"It is rather ironic that a considerable portion of this China-battering politician's wealth was actually obtained by doing business with Chinese companies before he entered politics," Xinhua wrote.
Burn! Will Romney disavow
Bain Capital's outsourcing jobs to China now? Even if he is no longer part of Bain, Romney's retirement funds are still invested in these companies, so he is still profiting from them.
"Such blaming-China-on-everything remarks are as false as they are foolish, for it has never been a myth that pushing up the value of China's currency would be of little use to boost the chronically slack job market of the world's sole superpower, not to mention to magically turn the poor U.S. economic performance around."
But state media has waded into the debate to lambaste what it sees as attempts to play the "China card", in a reflection of official thinking and concern the country's name is being unfairly dragged through the mud overseas.
Xinhua said such China-bashing had been "a cancer in U.S. electoral politics, seriously plaguing the relations between the two countries.
"It has also become a handy tool for U.S. politicians who try to court the votes and support of ill-informed voters by ratcheting up antagonistic sentiment towards China, while truly serious social and economic woes within the United States have been left unfixed."
The United States should "put its own fiscal house back in order, substantially slash its tremendous military expenditure, and optimize its economic structure", it added.
"It is advisable that politicians, including Romney, should abandon ... short-sighted China-bashing tricks and adopt at least a little bit of statesmanship on China-U.S. ties."
Granted, China is looking out for its own interests. But Romney's policies wouldn't be any better for America.