【Epoch Times News, September 16, 2024】 As the intense competition between Trump (Donald Trump) and Harris (Kamala Harris) for the 47th President of the United States continues, Chinese Americans in the United States have split into different camps. Some appreciate Trump’s patriotism and do not support Harris’s leftist tendencies, while others admire Harris’s compelling life story of rising from humble beginnings and oppose Trump’s unilateral approach to foreign policy.
Living in New York, Chinese expatriate Li Fang expressed to Epoch Times her strong support for everything Trump does to put “America First.” At the same time, she believes that the Democratic Party’s leftist agenda would bring disaster to the United States.
In August this year, addressing concerns about inflation, Harris proposed a plan to combat “business price gouging.” However, many critics argue that this resembles a planned economy typically seen in communist countries.
In a press release in August, Harris’s campaign team stated that her first hundred days as president would include an unprecedented federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries – setting clear guidelines to inform large corporations they cannot unfairly exploit consumers and make excessive profits from food and groceries.
Washington Post columnist Katherine Lamper argued that Harris’s plan is a comprehensive price control scheme enforced by the government across all industries (not just food). Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels, leading to shortages, black markets, hoarding, and distortions similar to those seen in other countries when trying to limit price growth through regulations.
Researchers at the Heritage Foundation, EJ Anthony and Andrew Peters, wrote that inflation is not caused by businesses but by the government’s economic policies, including massive government spending, significant increases in the money supply, and the heavy cost of overregulation.
Furthermore, economists pointed out that the inflation was sparked by the Biden administration’s spending spree. In February 2021, before the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, renowned economist Larry Summers warned that the plan would “generate inflation pressures like we have not seen in a generation.” Unfortunately, this prediction came true. The following year, after the passage of the trillion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act, the United States experienced inflation levels unseen since the 1980s.
Li Fang also expressed concerns about the Democratic Party’s tolerance of criminal behavior and enabling of gender confusion. In July 2016, then-California Attorney General Harris issued a document questioning a newly passed state law banning transgender individuals from using single-gender bathrooms and similar facilities in schools and workplaces based on their gender identity.
At that time, Harris claimed: “This biased and discriminatory law against transgender individuals is a dangerous setback on the long march toward equality for all Americans.” “I urge the courts to overturn those laws that perpetuate fear, intolerance, and humiliating characterizations, and to uphold policies that protect transgender individuals from discrimination. I will continue to fight to eliminate prejudice against the LGBTQ community.”
However, there are also Chinese supporters of Harris.
Chinese entrepreneur Wang Yingguo, currently living in the United States, told Epoch Times that he tends to support Harris in the U.S. elections because she exudes a “glow of struggle.” He admires her for her hard work and perseverance, believing that her life is one of struggle and joyful happiness.
Wang Yingguo opposes Trump’s trade war with China, arguing that the trade war has brought suffering to the general populations of both China and the U.S. “It has no impact on authoritarian regimes. I think the strike against a country or a dictatorial group should be precise,” he said. He cited U.S. operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Israel’s targeted strikes against Palestine as examples of precise actions.
Moreover, Wang Yingguo does not support Trump’s unilateral approach to foreign policy. “No country, region, or ethnicity in the world can live in isolation. In this global village where we live, it is a free market community. It means that for society to progress, it must promote exchanges, connections, and form a market economy among each other. Whether it’s the WTO or TPP, the premise is to facilitate exchanges rather than obstruct them.”
In January 2019, Trump demanded that Europe pay protection money to the United States: “Our military is being exploited by many countries. We provide them with everything they want, but they don’t help us. They don’t do anything financially for us.”
Wang Yingguo said, “When Trump and the Republicans are in power, you ask Europe to pay protection money to you, and you ask South Korea and Japan to pay protection money… you should maintain the original system on the premise of negotiation.”
In July this year, Trump demanded that Taiwan pay protection money to the United States. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, he stated, “Taiwan should pay us defense costs.” “You know, we are no different from an insurance company.”
Wang Yingguo believes that the United States is the defender of world democracy. “I think what the United States is doing is still far from enough. I think that democracy in the world needs people to uphold it, to establish a new order, and to swiftly eliminate the cancer of authoritarianism. Otherwise, you see many places where people are living in hell on earth.”
For example, in August 2021, the Biden administration ordered a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The Afghan people fell back under the control of the Taliban. Overnight, Afghan women lost their jobs and the right to appear in public, and those who resisted faced severe punishment. Turbaned Taliban leaders expelled women from the government and banned girls above the sixth grade from attending school.
Regarding the competition between Harris and Trump, Wang Yingguo also expressed, “The fact that the United States can have a person of different race become president is a miracle in human history. Look at China, with 56 ethnic groups, there has never been a minority ethnic group as a secretary or chairman, right? Minority ethnic groups at most play a decorative role. From this perspective, American democracy has reached a high level, which is why I have confidence in the American democratic system, which has been in place for over two hundred years.”
Wang Yingguo emphasized that there’s no need to worry about the future of the United States because the founding fathers of American democracy established a great mechanism. “That mechanism is that it also has a correction function. It has the function of rectifying mistakes continuously, operating continuously, and moving towards the correct direction.”