A Study Of China-related Issues In American Electoral Politics Since 2008 Under Agenda-setting Theory

China-related issues have been paid increasingly closer attention in many countries,especially in America since the worldwide financial crisis in 2008.As a powerful political weapon for parties and candidates,China-related issues are being hyped more and more frequently in American presidential and congressional elections.Former studies paid more attention to specific issues such as financial issues and sovereignty issues,yet few of them focused on the China-related issues’ setting mechanism as a whole under pertinent theory.Under the three layers of agenda-setting theory,this paper analyzes the China-related issues in American electoral politics since 2008,probing into the logic of how American political parties and candidates choose and utilize these issues.This paper finds that in the first object-setting layer,American political parties and candidates tend to select China-related issues according to their party preference and social hot spots.In the attribute-setting layer,party attribute oriented and public sentiment oriented strategies are used to package China-related issues.In the last layer of network agenda setting,China-related issues,linked with other issues,begin to function in electoral politics as a scapegoat of American domestic problems,a mirror of candidates’ political standpoints,a public consensus manufacturer and a haven to escape from the responsibility of keeping words after being elected.Understanding the logic of setting China-related issues in American electoral politics under the theoretical structure of agenda-setting theory has an academic importance in studying American political campaigns as well as a diplomatic significance in Sino-US relations.