Kamala Harris’s record offers only hints of a China worldview

But in her single, brief meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Harris delivered a friendlier message, urging open communication between the two rivals.

Over almost eight years as a senator and vice president, Harris has offered only fleeting glimpses of how she would put her mark on America’s tense relationship with China as president. China strategy is among the big questions about Harris’s foreign-policy priorities as she races into a general election against former President Donald Trump, whose vows to step up trade pressure on Beijing are a hallmark of his campaign.

Her thin foreign-policy record suggests a President Harris would borrow heavily from President Biden’s playbook, which has framed China as an authoritarian challenger to U.S. pre-eminence, according to analysts in Washington and Beijing. Harris’s past statements and voting record as a senator also hint at her concerns about Chinese human rights and cyber theft, a contrast to Trump’s trade focus.

The next president will likely inherit a U.S.-China relationship that has deteriorated since Trump was in office, though it has shown signs of stabilizing after a November summit between Biden and Xi in San Francisco. From the Oval Office last week, Biden also said it is no longer inevitable that China will surpass the U.S., an apparent reference to its recent economic slowdown that could subdue some congressional anxiety about Chinese power.

But bilateral tensions remain high over China’s indirect support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s military muscle flexing in Asia and its increasing reliance on exports that threaten to flood global markets.

A ‘female Obama’

As president, Harris would likely continue Biden’s emphasis on bolstering alliances with Japan, South Korea and other regional powers to counter Beijing’s assertive behavior, said Lily McElwee, a fellow in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s almost certain that her views have been shaped by her role over the past few years," McElwee said, referring to the vice president’s intensive on-the-job training in international affairs.

McElwee said that while a President Harris might be inclined to emphasize human rights or climate concerns more than Trump, Biden-style cooperation with allies is likely here to stay no matter who the next president is.

A Harris aide said the vice president has visited Asia four times and met with the leaders of all five U.S. treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific. Harris has also led U.S. delegations at summits in Asia, including the one where she met Xi, and to foreign capitals where she reaffirmed U.S. commitments to allies and called out Beijing for military and economic aggression, including the statements in Japan and the Philippines.

“The vice president has dedicated significant time and energy to strengthening our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, which has been a critical part of our overall strategy to outcompete China," the aide said.

In China, a burst of attention to Harris has centered primarily on her looks, gender and race, not core issues of bilateral relations. Media commentators grasping for ways to explain her political ascension have called Harris a “female Obama," and cast doubt she can beat Trump.

Limited attention in Chinese media to how Harris might steer policy reflects that Beijing isn’t taking an official position on the candidates and predictions both will be hawkish toward China. “The presidential elections are the United States’ own affairs. We have no comment on that," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said at a briefing.

“The Chinese side won’t hold out too much hope for a positive shift in the U.S.’s China policy, no matter who wins the election," said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

Crash course

Harris wasn’t much exposed to international affairs or foreign leaders until becoming Biden’s vice president in 2021. In her past election campaigns for the presidency, Senate and California attorney general, she ran primarily on her domestic-policy positions.

Biden’s China strategy reflects his decades as a foreign-policy hand and his intimate knowledge of Xi. “I’ve spent more time with him than any other world leader," the president has said.

Trump began his presidency a novice on China. He hadn’t visited its mainland but had pursued business in the country. Once in office, Trump hosted Xi at his home, was feted in Beijing and then spent months tussling with Chinese envoys to negotiate a trade pact.

Now, episodes such as Harris’s brief and formulaic chat with Xi on the sidelines of a leadership conference in Bangkok in 2022 are taking on fresh significance as government officials and other observers scrutinize her record for clues to her future policies.

The aide said the meeting “contributed to the administration’s efforts to responsibly manage the competition with China."

Days after she met Xi in 2022, Harris angered Beijing from the Philippine Coast Guard vessel, moored near waters where China is trying to assert control through maritime claims that the Philippines and the U.S. call illegal. “We will continue to rally our allies and partners against unlawful and irresponsible behavior," she said. The Harris aide said she has met Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.six times as the U.S. has tightened its ties to the nation and forged bonds between Tokyo and Manila.

In step with Biden, Harris has spoken more forcefully about supporting Taiwan than Trump, who expressed a preference in a recently published Bloomberg Businessweek interview for the democratic island to “pay us for defense." Harris has also met Taiwan’s current president, Lai Ching-te, when both were vice presidents visiting Honduras in 2022. From a U.S. Navy vessel in Japan later that year, Harris asserted that the U.S. “will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense, consistent with our longstanding policy."

In each instance, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said such matters are China’s internal affairs.

Campaign clues

Harris’s previous presidential campaign offers other clues to her thinking about Beijing.

“Under my administration, we will cooperate with China on global issues like climate change, but we won’t allow human rights abuses to go unchecked," she said in 2019.

In Harris’s 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," she called for more investment in “law enforcement efforts to cut off the supply of fentanyl from China" and compared the impact of Chinese cyberattacks to warplanes bombing American cities. The book didn’t mention the Chinese Communist Party.

How Harris might differ from Trump on economic policy toward China isn’t clear. She told a vice-presidential debate audience four years ago that Trump had lost the trade war with China, though the Biden administration has retained key Trump tariffs and its strategy isn’t unlike the current Republican platform that calls for “secure strategic independence from China."

Like Trump, Harris opposed the Obama-era Trans-Pacific Partnership with Asian nations that was designed to expand alternatives to trading with China.

During her previous presidential campaign, Harris was among dozens of senators who co-sponsored a bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) to downgrade the U.S. relationship with Hong Kong amid a Chinese crackdown on antigovernment unrest in the former British colony.

Answering questions from the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations during her run, Harris said “China’s abysmal human rights record must feature prominently in our policy toward the country," and called its surveillance a tool of religious repression against Uyghur Muslims.

Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com and Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com