Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Bloomberg's Soft-on-China Trade Policy Unique in Democratic Presidential
Field

Rob Garver

   WASHINGTON - In announcing his candidacy for the Democratic
   presidential nomination last week, former New York mayor and media
   tycoon Mike Bloomberg added a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate about
   President Donald Trump's trade war with China, and perhaps further, to
   the entire relationship between Washington and Beijing.

   Bloomberg represents something unique in the Democratic primary field
   -- an unreconstructed free-trader who also takes a far less critical
   view of China's repressive internal policies than many of his
   opponents.

   Since well before declaring his candidacy, Bloomberg has been a loud
   critic of Trump on trade policy, saying the president's sanctions-heavy
   approach to negotiation with China and other countries "set new
   benchmarks of incoherence and irresponsibility."

   During the Obama administration, Bloomberg voiced support for
   multilateral trade agreements that are now criticized not just by
   Trump, but also by many of the current Democratic presidential
   candidates.

   Bloomberg, whose international media empire has long-established ties
   to China and regularly hosts high-profile conferences there, is also an
   outlier in terms of his thinking about the nature of the Chinese
   Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

   Defends Xi's government

   In an interview for the PBS television show "Firing Line" in September,
   Bloomberg drew sharp criticism after seeming to defend Xi's government
   as responsive to its people and fundamentally democratic.

   "The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen
   to the public," he said. "Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to
   satisfy his constituents or he's not going to survive."

   At the time, mass pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were facing a
   violent response from the Chinese government, and news reports about
   the brutal repression of the Uighur minority in China's Xinjiang
   Province were widespread.

.