Jon Huntsman, future president?

US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman has just announced that he will step down from his post, effective April 30. Of course, everyone is now speculating that he will run in the Republican presidential primaries in 2012.

Huntsman, by most accounts, has been a terrific ambassador to China. The former governor of Utah was appointed to the post by President Obama in part because of his familiarity with China, and in part as a (failed) attempt to eliminate political competition in 2012. He learned Mandarin as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan and is often said to be fluent (although I think that that's a bit of an overstatement). One of his seven children, Gracie Mei, was adopted from China. Most impressively, despite many major disagreements between the US and China during Huntsman's appointment (yuan revaluation, human rights issues, naval confrontations in the South China Sea), he is still liked by the Chinese population.

If he is indeed planning on running, Huntsman would lead the pack of mostly weak potential Republican candidates that have been named so far. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich are all too right-wing to appeal to the majority of the American population; governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and even Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota might be too little known outside of their home states. Huntsman's experience in the Obama administration, albeit as an ambassador, and his Mormon faith will count against him in the primaries. But his success as Utah governor, experience in China, and conservative values will make him a formidable candidate in 2012.

Huntsman wouldn't be the first US representative to China to make a bid for president. George H. W. Bush was President Ford's chief envoy to the PRC during the mid-1970s. While in Beijing, Bush called for warmer relations between the two countries and continuing dialogue. (This is all detailed in published diaries from his time in Beijing). Even when the Tiananmen crackdown occurred during his presidency, Bush ignored calls from both the left and the right to sever ties with Beijing. Instead, he personally called Deng Xiaoping to discuss the incident, and was criticized for being too close to the leaders of the 1989 crackdown.

While it is certainly too early to tell, the question must be asked: what could a Huntsman presidency mean for Sino-American relations? Sinocism thinks that Obama should fire Huntsman immediately in order to save US-China relations; Obama will lose face if one of his appointees unseats him. I think this argument is pretty weak. America should never compromise its democratic values (i.e., firing an ambassador because he chooses to participate in free elections) in order to appear 'strong' to an authoritarian government. Moreover, firing Huntsman only weeks before he will resign makes Obama look irrational and overly partisan at a time when that is the last thing he wants to do. It might even help Huntsman's campaign--after all, anything Obama doesn't like is good for a Republican candidate. Overall, Huntsman knows enough about Chinese culture and politics to be able to successfully negotiate the ever-changing Sino-American relationship.

But for now, he has yet to announce his candidacy.