Related reading: Pre-convention talk accentuates the positive

Despite some hostile rhetoric during his campaign, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's views on China are largely in line with those of President Barack Obama, US experts said.

But Romney hasn't backed away from verbal bluster regarding economic policies toward China that he has vowed to pursue if he defeats Obama in November's election.

A few days before Monday's opening of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Romney issued what he called "a strategy that makes the path of regional hegemony for China far more costly than the alternative path of becoming a responsible partner in the international system".

Elsewhere, the challenger has said he'll adopt a "fresh and fearless" approach to US-China trade relations, which he says have been marred by Obama's "acquiescence".

Romney has said that on his first day in office he would issue an executive order branding China a currency manipulator and directing that countervailing duties on Chinese imports be imposed if Beijing failed to act to strengthen the yuan, including against Chinese companies or industries that rely on unfair practices or misappropriated US technology for competitive advantage.

He also would discontinue US government purchasing from China until it committed to a World Trade Organization agreement on procurement; improve border enforcement to prevent counterfeit goods from being brought into the US from China; pursue significant claims of unfair Chinese trade practices through courts, the WTO and the US Trade Representative's Office.

On defense, a President Romney would expand the US naval presence in the western Pacific and help allies in the region enhance their defensive capability against China.

To close off "China's option of expanding its influence through coercion", the United States needs to strengthen relations with regional powers such as India and Indonesia and build bilateral relations with and among like-minded nations around the world, reads a statement posted on Romney's official campaign website.

"Our objective is not to build an anti-China coalition," the statement continues. "Rather it is to strengthen cooperation among countries with which we share a concern about China's growing power and increasing assertiveness, and with whom we also share an interest in maintaining freedom of navigation and ensuring that disputes over resources are resolved by peaceful means."

Human rights and the Korean Peninsula's nuclear issues are also mentioned.

Romney will be tougher on sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and urge China to use its political and economic leverage over its neighbor to end the DPRK nuclear program.

"The policy statement on his website is very mainstream," said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Chinese and Asian affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "Romney's own rhetoric has been rather different."

She said the Republican's views are quite similar to Obama administration policy.

"In fact, US policy toward the region and China in particular has been bipartisan," she said. "I expect no major departures from current policy if Romney is elected."

The choice of former World Bank president Robert Zoellick to head Romney's national-security transition team is evidence that the Republican would be pragmatic and build on the achievements of Obama's administration, she added.

The complaint from the party over the pick is that Zoellick, who served as trade representative and then deputy secretary of state under President George W Bush, is a foreign-policy realist who might be too friendly to China for some Republicans.

While their views concerning China seem on par, Jonathan Pollack, an Asia-Pacific studies expert at Washington's Brookings Institution, said the two candidates differ in tone and emphasis.

Romney proposes a strategy that stresses efforts to "inhibit" the growth of Chinese power in all forms, whereas Obama's administration seeks fuller integration of China into the Asia-Pacific region while preserving policy options if positive expectations aren't realized, Pollack said.

"Fundamentally, Romney appears much more doubting about the possibilities of Chinese accommodation with others in the region," he said.

"Though I do not think that Obama in any way romanticizes or idealizes China, he sees deep engagement at all levels combined with closer relationships with US allies and partners as the preferred path to address China's rise."

On the sidelines of the convention on Monday - which was gaveled into session for only 30 seconds due to weather concerns -Heidi Smith, a member of Nevada's Republican delegation, told China Daily that she doesn't care much about Romney's foreign policy. She agrees with his trade strategies on China, however.

"We lost our manufacturing jobs and we have to bring them back," she said. "The biggest thing is that we have to start mass-producing, too. Otherwise we have no jobs and we have to make things to be sold in China."

tanyingzi@chinadailyusa.com