Obama gets China’s youth vote
Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – Judging by the reactions to the life-size cardboard cutouts of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, the latter was the clear favorite in a hotel conference room in Beijing early Wednesday morning.
Crowds of young Chinese waited impatiently to pose with the cardboard Obama for their cameras. One female student stealthily turned away the McCain cutout so she and her friends could huddle more comfortably beside the president-elect.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Many Chinese seemed to relish the opportunity to "cast" a vote. |
It was all part of a dual-pronged effort by the American Embassy in Beijing to educate Chinese on the U.S. electoral process and to celebrate the election results for what some call the most historic presidential race in decades.
The U.S. Embassy, with assistance from the American Chamber of Commerce and the American Center for Educational Exchange, set up mock voting booths and handed out pamphlets explaining the process.
First ‘vote’ for many Chinese
Crowds of young Chinese read the mock ballots, diligently filled them out, and then stood before cameras in front of the ballot box. It was the first time any of them had cast a vote – real or imaginary.
"It’s exciting," said She Rui, a 24-year-old graduate student in international relations at People’s University. The election, he said, "is very important, because it gives the people a chance to express their needs [and] to choose their leaders."
He and some of his fellow students said they were happy Obama won. "He is young and can give fresh blood to American society," said 21-year-old Xing Yu Jie,
In fact, the room was overwhelmingly pro-Obama. At one stage, embassy officials tallied the mock vote, which showed 21 percent of those casting ballots had chosen McCain while 75 percent had elected Obama.
We looked for the few McCain holdouts.
"That’s American choice," said Li Fan, president of the World and China Institute, who said he was a Republican Party supporter. "Americans selecting Obama means American people want to have change so change won." But Li said he didn’t think change would come.
In fact, many older Chinese expressed skepticism about the prospects for real change. "There’s not much difference between the two candidates," an old family friend told me. "They may say they will do this or change that, but when they are in office, it won’t be possible to do any of the things they promised during the campaign."
Skeptical about change in Beijing-Washington relations
One area that definitely won’t change, say most Chinese we spoke to Wednesday morning, is relations between Washington and Beijing. Said Xing, Obama "can’t change [Sino-American relations] very much, because I think China is also a new world power."
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Chinese try to make sense of a mock US ballot |
However, Professor Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University said that does not mean officials and policymakers in China won’t be paying close attention now that Obama is set to take over in January.
"Obama’s victory is very important to the China-U.S. relationship," said Yan. "Obama could possibly adopt protectionist policies that will make China’s exports to the U.S. difficult… But on the other hand Obama will emphasize multilateralism and will look for cooperation with China in the financial field [and] look for joint efforts to save America’s economy and the world economy."
Either way, most Chinese attending the embassy reception seemed more interested in soaking up the festive atmosphere than speculating about the future relationship between China and the U.S.
I turned to my Chinese colleague, Gu Bo, and asked, "Would you vote if you could?"
"Yeah, I would vote," she said without hesitation. "And I hope one day I can vote in China. If I’m still alive."
