{"id":129650,"date":"2012-01-09T20:44:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T03:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=129650"},"modified":"2012-01-11T17:32:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T00:32:26","slug":"huntsmans-running-mate-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/01\/huntsmans-running-mate-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntsman’s Running Mate: China"},"content":{"rendered":"
On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, The New York Times notes a growing curiosity with Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman’s Chinese language skills<\/a><\/strong> and his experience as America’s ambassador to Beijing:<\/p>\n At his campaign stops, people young and old have approached Mr. Huntsman with a chipper \u201cNi hao\u201d (hello) or \u201cNi hao ma\u201d (how are you). Some have waded through the gauntlet of television cameras to tell Mr. Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, about their trip to Beijing, their dining experiences in Hong Kong or their son\u2019s college semester in Shanghai.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Mr. Huntsman, who learned Mandarin as a Mormon in Taiwan in the 1980s, has sprinkled Chinese phrases around the campaign trail for months, including in Saturday\u2019s debate. When former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts said he would not let China \u201ckill American jobs any longer,\u201d Mr. Huntsman quipped in Mandarin, \u201cHe doesn\u2019t understand the situation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Reuters points out that Huntsman wouldn’t be the first president to speak Chinese<\/a>, even if\u00a0his claims to fluency have come under scrutiny<\/a> in recent months. Huntsman\u00a0has also criticized\u00a0his GOP\u00a0rivals<\/a> for anti-China pandering during the campaign, and in turn has come under fire for his China ties.\u00a0One Ron Paul support group\u00a0posted a video on YouTube<\/a> questioning Huntsman’s values and calling him “the Manchurian Candidate,” though Paul disavowed the ad<\/a>. After Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney\u00a0attacked\u00a0Huntsman in a weekend debate\u00a0for serving as ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, a Democrat,\u00a0fellow candidate Newt Gingrich called Romney “narrow-minded” and defended Huntsman’s credentials<\/a><\/strong>. From AFP:<\/p>\n “Governor Huntsman had lived for years in Asia, speaks fluent Chinese, is extraordinarily prepared to be the American ambassador to China and I suspect at that point he took it as a citizen” out of a sense of duty, said Gingrich.<\/p>\n “There are plenty of things that we can argue about without impugning the motives of somebody who has served this country at considerable personal inconvenience,” said the former lawmaker.<\/p>\n Huntsman, who had offered a wobbly defense of his time in Beijing in a debate late Saturday, took the fight to Romney in a Sunday face-off, saying the millionaire venture capitalist had attacked him for “putting my country first” at a time when Romney was raising cash to run for his presidential campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n