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The US Midterm Elections: Views From China

Most Chinese analysts don’t expect a sea change in U.S. foreign policy, but there are some implications for China to consider.

The U.S. midterm elections on November 3 were closely watched around the world as a way to gauge public support for the polarizing administration of Donald Trump. The verdict is in: the opposition Democratic Party won big, taking control of both houses of Congress with majorities Democrats haven’t enjoyed in years. Several states elected Democratic senators and governors for the first time in decades – in some cases, nearly a century.

Officially, of course, China won’t comment on the results of the election. That, as Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on November 4, is “a domestic affair” of the United States. “China stands ready to continue working with the U.S. to uphold and deliver on the important common understandings reached by the two heads of state,” Mao said.

In a speech delivered on election day, Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, said, “A confident and composed China is committed to the steady, sound, and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations… China’s policy toward the United States remains consistent and stable.”

The first news readouts from Xinhua, China’s state news agency, were also terse, although the points of information they chose to include were telling. In one early article, for example, Xinhua did not mention the historic nature of Democratic Party wins, but instead quoted Trump’s social media post that “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” The short, three-paragraph report also devoted the entire last paragraph to comments from a White House official, who predicted U.S. voters “will suffer from severe buyer’s remorse.”

Xinhua published a much longer analysis on November 4, highlighting four “unexpected” outcomes. This article delved into the massive scale of the Democratic victory, from the size of its new House majority to the flipping of Senate seats in traditionally safe Republican states like Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina.

Rather than offering perspectives from Chinese analysts, Xinhua’s article extensively cited U.S. media, including this quote from the Wall Street Journal: “Rarely in American politics has a president traded away so much political support so quickly. The losses that Republicans suffered on Tuesday marked one of the most decisive repudiations of a president in modern history.”

Chinese state media had much less to say about the causes of the Republican defeat – again, Beijing’s official line being that this is an “internal affair” of the United States. However, Xinhua did cite the general thesis by U.S. analysts that economic dissatisfaction amid rising prices was the primary culprit. And those rising prices were exacerbated by the Trump administration’s decision to strike Iran. Xinhua published a whole article covering Vice President J.D. Vance’s post-election verdict that the war on Iran had cost the Republicans control of Congress.

One Xinhua report cited Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf, who posted on X: “Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.”

“What the Chinese public is most concerned about … is the impact of the U.S. midterm election results on the Iran war and Ukraine war,” Mu Chunshan, an independent political analysts based in Beijing, told The Diplomat via email. “They are less focused on the impact on China-U.S. relations. This is because Trump has consistently shown respect to China.”

If Democrats act to restrain Trump’s military operations in Iran, Mu said, it would be align “with China’s long-standing call for a peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear issue.” He sees the election results as “conducive to China and other countries pushing for a negotiated resolution of the Iran nuclear issue and Strait [of Hormuz] security issues.”

That said, Chinese analysts are well aware of Congress’ limited control over foreign policy. In an pre-election analysis, South China Morning Post cited Zhao Zhijiang, a research assistant at the Beijing-based........

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