NEWS WEEK
Chinese state media dismissed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis‘s presidential campaign on Sunday, mocking him as a “M-size” version of former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis, who is running in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has positioned himself as a staunch opponent of China as governor and signed legislation in Mayaimed at counteracting the “malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the state of Florida.” Last week, he announced his economic platform if elected president, which includes a promise of “taking back control of our economy from China by banning imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property, strengthening protections against child and forced labor and ending China’s preferential trade status.”
Despite the governor’s rhetoric, Chinese state newspaper the Global Times ran an opinion piece on Sunday written by columnist Ding Gang titled, “No need for China to worry about ‘M-Size Trumps Like DeSantis.’
The opinion piece takes aim at DeSantis’s poll numbers, which have struggled despite initial expectations that he would be the Republican with the greatest chance of beating Trump in the GOP primary, while also saying that anti-China candidates won’t have significant impacts on China.
“If the real Donald Trump is an L-size candidate, then Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is an M-size Trump,” the opinion piece reads. “The Republican candidate, described by the US media as ‘Trump with a brain,’ soon shrank in popularity to an M-sized Trump.”
Ding wrote that DeSantis appeared to be an “XL-sized candidate” when he first announced he is running for president in May when his campaign “appeared to be in full swing,” but that his polices failed to “get him out of Trump’s shadow.”
He ripped DeSantis’s China policies as nothing new for American politicians, who have sought to build up the United States’ presence in the Indo-Pacific region with the aim of competing with China.
“DeSantis has yet to offer anything new. His proposals to end China’s preferential trade status, ban the export of US intellectual property and prevent US companies from sharing key technologies with China are no different from what Trump has already done and what the Democratic Party‘s Biden administration is doing,” Ding wrote.
Newsweek reached out to the DeSantis campaign via email for comment.
Trump, who remains the frontrunner to win the Republican presidential nomination, has also positioned himself as a China critic ahead of the election. He has taken credit for bringing China to the “attention of the world,” highlighting his anti-China policies during his presidential tenure in a video released earlier this year.
Still, his stance on China has faced scrutiny from his challengers, including from former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who criticized him in June for congratulating the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on its 70th anniversary.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has maintained that his administration is seeking competition, not conflict, with China, though relations have been strained following the Chinese spy balloon that was caught hovering over the U.S. earlier this year, as well as amid questions about Taiwanese independence.
