Getting Tough on China: An Exploratory Analysis of Sentiments in Washington and in American Media Toward China from 2016 to 2024

Abstract

The commonly heard phrase “politics stops at the water’s edge” appears to hold increasingly less credence in today’s climate of increasing polarization over U.S. foreign policy.¹ Yet, one policy stance has continued to garner bipartisan support since its unequivocal hardening during President Donald Trump’s first administration—getting “tough on China.”² Washington’s strategy for getting “tough on China” varied under both Trump and his successor, President Joseph Biden. In light of the 2024 Presidential election, it has become increasingly apparent that, today, no candidate can run as a legitimate contender without framing China as a threat to American interests that must be managed.³ Our study undertakes sentiment analysis, powered by computer programming, to answer the question: how and why has the “tough on China” rhetorical and policy stance changed in the United States between the first Trump administration and the Biden administration? Although being “tough on China” has become a bipartisan stance, studying trends of how and why American sentiments toward China have evolved, particularly those displayed by the government and media outlets, could evince a feedback loop between the two entities. Through an analysis of documents from the U.S. Department of State (DOS), as well as news articles from Cable News Network (CNN) and Fox News, which are prototypical of left- and right-leaning outlets respectively, we find that:

1.  All analyzed political entities maintained decisively negative sentiments toward China, regardless of their political affiliation. 
2. The DOS maintained a relatively restrained level of negative sentiments, regardless of the president’s political affiliation, phase within an election cycle, or developments in international affairs, while CNN and Fox News expressed greater swings in the intensity of these same negative sentiments. 
3.  Variations in sentiments expressed by CNN and Fox News are heavily contingent on the administration in power, as well as intervening events like elections or exogenous shocks.