Mitt Romney attempted to refine his foreign policy platform in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Monday, but he was again long on rhetoric and short on strategy. What passed for substance in the speech was largely focused on the Middle East. Predictably, most of the reactions to the speech also focused on the Middle East, mainly President Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program and his response to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month.


Notably absent from the media coverage and the speech itself was China. In fact, Romney mentioned China only once. This is discouraging since the U.S.-China relationship will likely be the most important foreign policy issue over the next few decades.


In today’s Cato Podcast, Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies, discusses America’s China policy and the presidential candidates’ lack of focus on the issue. Obama and Romney have each spent time demagoguing China on their currency and other trade issues. But this political rhetoric has been at the expense of any serious effort to discuss at length how the candidates disagree when it comes to the U.S.-China relationship. Instead, the foreign‐​policy debate has centered on the greater Middle East, where U.S. interests are much smaller. The candidates exemplify a bipartisan obsession with the Middle East when in large part the consequential issues that the United States will face in the years to come will be much further to the east.