Mike Pence’s China speech had two messages – and two audiences – along with some good news on the trade war

The US vice-president’s speech sought to reassure financial markets ahead of the 2020 election while also rousing Trump’s political base. Red meat thrown to the latter crowd made headlines and irritated Beijing, but the speech also left leeway on a trade deal

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US Vice-President Mike Pence speaks on the future of the US relationship with China at the Wilson Centre in Washington on October 24. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:00am, 30 Oct 2019Updated: 4:29am, 30 Oct 2019

US Vice-President Mike Pence delivered a long-awaited speech on China policy last week that surprised on the upside. Last October, he delivered a harangue against China that was an embarrassing pastiche of the many complaints the Trump administration has made against China and its practices.

The earlier speech seemed to have no specific policy objective. By contrast, this time, Pence combined a litany of complaints with some more reassuring words in support of an impending interim truce in the trade war Donald Trump has initiated.

American headlines about Pence’s speech focused on his criticism of Nike and the National Basketball Association. It is not apparent why he chose to dwell on these recent topics, where athletes and executives expressed themselves in a variety of ways on the merits of Hong Kong’s recent protests and violence. But Americans will always be drawn to stories involving sports.

Overall, to my eye, the speech appeared instead to be a political message aimed at two audiences. The first is the global business and financial community, which has been repeatedly buffeted by abrupt tweets from Trump, announcing new tariffs or measures to intensify the trade war that the president has declared “easy to win”.

The trouble for Trump and Pence has been that, every time a new measure is taken against China, stock markets have a fit and plummet. Moreover, increasingly, responsible economists and bankers have been saying that the trade frictions are slowing American and global economic growth.