Media and soybeans - Beijing's new "weapon" to retaliate against Mr. Trump

Anti-Trump propaganda campaign

News agencyBloombergAccording to observers, Beijing is trying to influence American public opinion by hiring American newspapers to publish articles attacking the country's president, related to the bilateral trade confrontation.

The latest evidence of the campaign is a four-page article titled "Controversy: The Consequences of a President's Foolish Action" published last weekend in the Des Moines Register, the largest newspaper in the state of Iowa, USA.

The article, which appeared on the front pages of the newspaper on September 23, detailed how the trade war ignited by President Trump is forcing Chinese importers to turn to South America instead of buying American soybeans.

Notably, the article was published with the caption "paid for and prepared entirely by China Daily, an official publication of the People's Republic of China," implying that China's leading daily newspaper had purchased advertising space in the Des Moines Register.

In addition to the editorial, Sunday's edition of the Des Moines Register also featured a book chronicling Chinese President Xi Jinping's "good old days in Iowa" when he visited the state in 1985 and 2012, along with another article titled "Beijing Can Set an Example for the World."

According to Tommy Vietor, former national security spokesman for former President Barack Obama, Beijing is using a "relatively clever" tactic to attack the White House leader right on "home turf". Beijing's choice of Iowa to "open fire" is also believed to be related to the fact that Terry Branstad, a former longtime governor of Iowa, is the US Ambassador to China.

Soybean "weapon"

Analysts point out that China is using soybeans as a dangerous weapon to counterattack President Trump.

Iowa is located in the Midwest of the United States and is one of the country's major soybean-producing states. Meanwhile, China is the world's largest soybean consumer. Before the trade war broke out, the United States was one of China's key suppliers of this agricultural product. In 2017 alone, China imported 95.53 million tons of soybeans from the United States.

A new article in the Des Moines Register quoted Davie Stephens, vice president of the American Soybean Association and also a major soybean producer in Kentucky, warning: "As the number one importer of US soybeans, China is a large and essential market that we (the US) cannot afford to lose."

There is no denying that Iowa soybean farmers are among the hardest hit by Beijing’s tit-for-tat retaliation against Washington, which has seen Beijing impose 25% tariffs on many of America’s key exports. Soybean exports have contributed $30.8 million to Iowa’s total export revenue of more than $1 billion.

Therefore, efforts to influence the anxious psychology of voters in Iowa could put Mr. Trump and the Republican Party at risk of losing support in one of the key electoral states in the midterm elections taking place this November.

Before the Des Moines Register campaign, China had bought similar pages in the July issue of Roll Call, a newspaper that covers the US Congress and politics, to focus on trade and the consequences of the confrontation between the world’s two largest economies. This is believed to be Beijing’s first attempt to directly influence American voters.

The White House leader himself seems to have recognized China's strange retaliation. According toBBCIn a message posted on Twitter on September 26, President Trump shared photos of articles he described as a "propaganda campaign" by the Chinese against him.

At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York earlier that day, as chair, Mr. Trump unexpectedly publicly accused China of interfering in the upcoming US midterm elections, without providing evidence. In a press interview afterward, he asserted that the evidence would reveal itself.

The new moves show that the trade war between Washington and Beijing shows no signs of cooling down. Analysts say that when both sides run out of "conventional ammunition" - measures to increase import tariffs on each other's goods - they will launch "unique and strange tricks" to crush their opponents. Observers are still waiting to see what plan Mr. Trump will use this time to deal with China's "unique tricks".