Under an Obama presidential administration, China will less likely be nuked.

Barack Obama has a half-brother living here.

Other that that, it’s hard to guess how the U.S. presidential candidates’ China policies really differ at this point based on the candidates mumbo jumbo views recently published in AmCham-China’s China Brief magazine.

So given the confusion, we came up with a few reasons working American expats should vote for either John McCain or Obama.

Vote for McCain

• If you loved paying U.S. taxes on anything above 80-some thousand dollars a year despite living and working in China, you’ll love paying Obama’s taxes. Notice how effective marginal tax rates go up for a chunk of people making over US$100,000 a year. See the graph here. Further, for families in the top 0.1 percent of the income scale (and hell, we know expats are loaded), McCain would offer a $269,364 tax cut while Obama would raise taxes, on average, by $701,885. So basically, if you’re in the cream of the American crop, you get an extra mil a year with McCain.
• The U.S. business world is up-in-the-air over the candidates (Carleton Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, backs McCain; Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt hotel family – and a tad more savvy than Paris - backs Obama). So you’re in good company if you’re playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Or elephant.
• Let’s face it, business votes with its pocketbook – not in the election booth. And in practice, business has found that giving to both candidates ensures that it will be a winner no matter the outcome. Among renowned two-timing contributors are David Rockefeller, Arthur Zeikel (former president of Merrill Lynch) and Donald B. Marron (former Paine Webber Group chief executive). So give to McCain. And Obama.

Vote for Obama

• Chinese like Obama, according to an Asia Society video, and Baidu’s Obama doodle. So if you want to impress your Chinese clients at dinner with your American voting record, you might want to get one of those Obama’s-My-Sugar-Mama presidential pins. Or an Obama-Biden one for the more prudent among us. [[Note to self: The fact that you can vote period still may be enough to impress Chinese clients.]]
• If you ever wind up in a Chinese jail, McCain might not be so empathetic given his former treatment in the Hanoi Hilton. Jail in China has HBO, as we reported here.
• Don’t forget that half-brother in China. You have reason enough to die early living and working in China, from Beijing’s infamous air pollution to Frogger-like street crossings in its traffic. You don’t need another one: global thermonuclear war. You might think that would be reason enough to prevent a president from hitting the red button, but there’s nothing like family deterrence in the fallout zone.

    Channel: Vital News     |