Is China interfering with the 2018 midterms?

US Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad. Reuters. 

The US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad has repeated President Trump's claim that China is interfering with the 2018 midterm elections. Reuters. China's China Daily paper had bought a four page advertisement supplement in Iowa's Des Moines register touting US-China trade relations. China is currently engaged in a trade war with the United States and China has specifically targeted Iowa with tariffs. Branstad wrote a reply article in the same paper countering the claims of China and had attempted to have his opinion piece published in China. China refused that offer. 

My Comment:

Much has been made about the 2016 elections and Russia's supposed interference in those elections. But I have always felt that China is a much bigger influence in our elections in general. Though Russia may have preferred Trump they seemed to have gone for a chaos strategy. China, on the other hand, went for Hillary Clinton due to Trump's position on trade. 

The article and many others have said what China has done here is fairly common. Many countries have done the same thing but usually not under these circumstance. I think there is a difference between doing it just to promote trade and doing it to hurt President Trump and the GOP's election chances in 2018. 

China has an obvious interest in having the Democrats win in 2018. They do not support Trump's trade practices and may try to derail his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. Those trade deals were largely at the expense of China. China is already suffering economically and will be damaged greatly by the new trade deals. 

I also have always thought that China has too much power over American culture. Movies are a good example of this. These days Hollywood is obsessed with Chinese movie dollars to the point where they censor themselves. A good example of this is the remake of the movie Red Dawn. Originally China was the villain but it was changed to North Korea at the last minute. Many other changes like this have occurred as well. That essentially means that China has editorial control over American movies.

Still, I have never really bought election interference as a thing. I doubt a bunch of facebook memes and twitter accounts did anything in the 2016 elections and I doubt an oped in an Iowa newspaper will either. People are going to vote because of the economy, their opinion on President Trump, and the deplorable behavior of the Democratic Party. China's interference isn't going to do much.