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U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain may differ on domestic issues and foreign policy, but China will be something of a headache for whoever occupies the White House early next year.

Obama’s talk of friendship rather than competition with China early in his campaign has been redefined by his recent rhetoric urging punishment of China for manipulating the yuan, dumping goods in the United States and violating intellectual property rights. McCain has said he wants hazardous cheap toys banned and has taken swipes at the Chinese leadership for gagging free speech and religion.

But it is unsure if they will be able to walk the talk, with China holding US$502 billion in U.S. Treasury securities as of April this year – helping to finance the U.S. budget deficit – compared to US$60 billion in 2000. Since President George W. Bush took office, U.S. exports to China have risen 400 percent according to Commerce Department figures, while Chinese exports to the United States tripled.

Again, ground realities made both Bush and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, scale down their campaign rhetoric on China after they took office.

Now the forward-surging Chinese juggernaut, ready to devour resources at any cost in any part of the world, may upset certain set-in-stone ethics and parameters of democracy.

Public opinion in the United States and most parts of the world about Bush’s foreign policy has impacted the need for change, which has propelled the little-known Barack Obama into the forefront. But there are no safety nets for ordinary Chinese, who cannot affect any changes to the near totalitarian regime which sups with the most reviled despots of the world and sells them arms while going on overdrive in defense expenditures.

According to the U.S. State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices, 2006, “The communist state is brutal, officially executing somewhere between 5,000 and 12,000 people every year, more than all other states in the world combined.”

So how can the United States confront China without the worn-out Cold War policy of ratcheting up the U.S. defense budget – which John McCain has in mind – and with billions in piled-up debts?

The recent tamping down of Tibetan protestors and the veto of any aggressive U.N. aid push into Myanmar, where tens of thousands of people, mostly children, were starving, proved the Chinese leadership still does not care about world opinion, despite the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Despots rule the roost and freely trample on human rights.

All this is happening despite China’s efforts at an image makeover, which got underway after foreign investment started flowing in and the Chinese people from all walks of life were urged to build up the national image. Yet support for the Sudanese government, accused of genocide in Darfur, went right alongside this sprucing up exercise.

As China’s state media – Xinhua News Agency, CCTV, China Daily and China Radio International – compete with BBC in Southeast Asia, the Chinese administration has worked to create regional groups that sideline the United States, a concern expressed by John McCain. And the rebuttal that China is a developing country incapable of sophisticated cyber crimes like hacking into congressional computers has few buyers in the United States.

The lid has been firmly replaced on press freedom, after the measured openness following the catastrophic earthquake that hit Sichuan province last month. Agence France Press journalists were told in no uncertain terms to keep away from earthquake-ravaged school buildings and the parents of children killed in the collapsed schools. Many parents blame government corruption for the schools’ shoddy construction.

It would be naive to expect that China has hosted the six-party talks to make North Korea give up its nuclear arms without a strong interest in their outcome. U.S. presidents in the past have stuck to a one-China policy regarding Taiwan. But nearly 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. A near equal number in Japan, the Philippines and a few in Guam may also have to be pulled back after troops in South Korea head home in case North Korea comes clean. The United States cannot bank on its traditional allies in the region, where latent nationalism may surface once U.S. troops leave South Korean soil.

Can the United States leave the region totally exposed to China if the six-party talks finally succeed and Kim Jong-Il suddenly turns benign, unshackling North Koreans and opening his country’s gates? China may have an interest, but how will the United States deal with such a situation?

China’s practices of resisting democracy; protecting itself from eroding influences; sidelining Japan, a U.S. ally; tacitly resisting India, another emerging democratic Asian economy; and setting up firewalls for despotic regimes floating on scarce energy resources; may warrant some compromises in the U.S. China policy.

U.S. diplomacy will surely be tested as this emerging superpower continues to enjoy the best of both worlds – dreaming of past and future glories rooted in the Middle Kingdom era and centuries of dominance in Asia – and keeps on playing by its own rules.

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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)