What GOP presidential candidates have to say about China

Politicians are starting to take a tougher stance against China as the 2012 elections heat up and the economic recovery stalls. A bill designed to punish China for undervaluing its currency is gaining momentum in Congress. Here’s a look at what the GOP candidates have said about China.

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Mitt Romney

“These guys are after us and looking to harm us, economically at least,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney told an audience of about 200 during a town hall in New Hampshire. “We have to recognize that.”

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Romney has pledged to “get tough” on China on trade. He has accused Chinese companies of hurting the U.S. economy and the country’s ability to sustain jobs by systematically violating American companies’ intellectual property rights. “One of the most reprehensible practices on the part of Chinese enterprises — many of which, of course, are owned by the government — is stealing,” he said.

Keith Bedford / BLOOMBERG

Jon Huntsman, Jr.

Jon Huntsman Jr., who until April was the U.S. ambassador to China, finished his tour with some tension by releasing a statement calling on officials to release activist Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who wrote a declaration of human rights called Charter ’08 that was widely circulated among intellectuals.

Toni Sandys / THE WASHINGTON POST

In August during the Iowa debates, Huntsman, the former Utah governor, raised concerns about Chinese hackers. “Not only have government institutions been hacked into, but private individuals have been hacked, too,” he said. “It’s gone beyond the pale.”

Isaac Brekken / AP

Newt Gingrich

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich -- who has been a persona non grata in China since a 1997 trip during which he lectured China about its human rights abuses and then said the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if it were attacked by China -- said in an interview in July that he’s running for president because he fears the country is faced with three major challenges down the road.

Patrick Semansky / AP

One is loss of identity, Gingrich said, another involves the Middle East, he said, and the third is China. Gingrich told the Marietta Daily Journal on a campaign stop that he worries that China could one day replace the United States as the leading country in the world.

JASON LEE / REUTERS

"And if they both own trillions of dollars of our debt, and they have a superior manufacturing system and a superior military, then our range of independence will be within the framework the Chinese tolerate," Gingrich said. "Now, I don't find that to be a very acceptable future.”

Sim Chi Yin / BLOOMBERG

Michele Bachmann

During a talk radio segment on Aug. 18, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said that there’s a “fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline.”

Toni Sandys / THE WASHINGTON POST

"They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union, and our loss militarily going forward,” she added. (Bachmann’s flub -- the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago -- was the focus of commentary in the United States, but in China bloggers seized on her comments to predict that if she were elected she would be tougher on China than the Obama administration has been.)

Kevin Frayer / AP

Bachmann in February opened the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington by criticizing the way the United States deals with its debt. Much of the money we owe is to “friendly Chinese bankers” like Chinese President Hu Jintao, she quipped: “With all the money that we owe China, I think you might say correctly, Hu’s your daddy.”

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Rick Perry

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a different sort of China problem. In mid-August, stories broke about how he courted Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to based its U.S. operations in Plano despite security concerns expressed by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations that the company poses a potential cybersecurity risk to the military and businesses.

Charles Krupa / AP

Since then, Perry, who in June 2010 had led a delegation to the Shanghai expo to promote jobs and investments from China to the United States, has done an about-face, putting out several public statements criticizing China.

Eugene Hoshiko / ASSOCIATED PRESS

"China’s one-child policy has led to the great human tragedy of forced abortions throughout China. ... Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye,” Perry said in a statement.

QILAI SHEN / BLOOMBERG NEWS

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