Asia Matters for America
America Matters for Asia
Explore US-Asia National and Local Connections
An initiative of the East-West Center and Asia Matters for America partners and stakeholders
The 2020 Presidential Candidates on the Indo-Pacific resource highlighted mentions of Indo-Pacific issues by US presidential candidates and nominees in speeches, campaign documents, and debates.
To view statements by President Trump prior to his June 18, 2019 declaration to seek a second term, as well as members of his Cabinet, visit The Trump Administration & US - Indo-Pacific Relations.
"Democrats will take aggressive action against China or any other country that tries to undercut American manufacturing by manipulating their currencies and maintaining a misaligned exchange rate with the dollar, dumping products like steel and aluminum in our markets, or providing unfair subsidies. Unlike President Trump, we will stand up to efforts from China and other state actors to steal America’s intellectual property and will demand China and other countries cease and desist from conducting cyber espionage against our companies. And we will take immediate…
"U.S. Leadership in the Asian Pacific
We are a Pacific nation with economic, military, and cultural ties to all the countries of the oceanic rim and treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand. With them, we look toward the establishment of human rights for the people of North Korea. We urge the government of China to recognize the inevitability of change in the Kim family's slave state and, for everyone's safety against nuclear disaster, to hasten positive change on the Korean…
“Mike Pence: (32:06): They have a $2 trillion version of the Green New Deal, Susan, that your newspaper, USA Today, said really wasn’t that very different from the original Green New Deal. More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline. President Trump and I will keep America growing, the V-shape recovery that’s underway right now will continue with four more years of President Donald Trump [crosstalk 00:32:37] […]
Kamala Harris…
"Kristen Welker: (09:22)I do want to ask you, Vice-President Biden, about China. Let’s talk about China more broadly. There have, of course, President Trump has said that they should pay for not being fully transparent in regards to the coronavirus. If you were president, would you make China pay? And please be specific, what would that look like?
Joe Biden: (09:41)What I’d make China do is play by the international rules, not like he has done. He has caused the deficit of the…
*This interview oringally took place on December 4, 2019, before Andrew Yang failed to qualify for the January 14, 2020 debate.
James Dao: Can I pose a future hypothetical? If the Chinese government were to flood Hong Kong with military troops after you were president and impose a violent crackdown, similar to, say, Tiananmen Square in 1989, what would you do?
I have family in Hong Kong. I spent a semester there in college, and so when I see those streets wracked with riots and…
*This interview originally took place on December 4, 2019*
"James Dao: Moving from Europe to Asia, if China were to send troops, massive numbers of troops into Hong Kong, and impose a violent crackdown there similar to Tiananmen Square in 1989, what would you do as president? [...]You know, this is a hard hypothetical to take on until you actually know what’s happening. Again, you’ve got to back this one up on where we should have started. When the unrest first started unfolding in Hong Kong…
*This interview originally took place on December 2, 2019*
"AK: The president shares a lot of your concerns about our economic relationship with China and the other ——
No, the president does not, not quite. I mean, I know his rhetoric. I look at the world very differently than Mr. Trump does, but go ahead.
AK: [LAUGHS] I’m wondering if you could explain how your approach to dealing with China would be different from the president and how it would elicit better outcomes.
China is one…
"Q Mr. President, you mentioned the Chinese trade deal that you’re working on; you’re going to be signing, next week, phase one. Can you give us a sense of phase two —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — what you hope to accomplish there? And will you be travelling to Beijing for that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, phase one is a big, big number. It’s a big percentage of the deal. Some would say half, some would say a little less, or a little more than half…
"Q Mr. President, can you — what is your message tonight for — what is your message tonight for North Korea?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll see. I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un. I know he’s sending out certain messages about Christmas presents, and I hope his Christmas present is a beautiful vase. That’s what I’d like — a vase —
Q Do you think it will be, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: — as opposed to something else. I don’t know. I —…