There have been a number of anti-China political ads over the years. | POLITICO Screengrab 9 China-slamming campaign ads

Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra stirred up controversy last week with his Super Bowl ad depicting an Asian actress speaking broken English. “Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good,” the woman says in the spot as she rides a bike through what is supposed to be a rice paddy in China.

But the Michigan Republican’s not the first candidate to push an over-the-top ad bashing China — here’s POLITICO’s top 9 most memorable:


1. “Made in China”

West Virginia Republican Spike Maynard attacked Rep. Nick Rahall with an ad accusing the Democrat of creating jobs in China — all set to stereotypical Chinese music. Maynard lost the 2010 election.

“It’s on our jeans, even children’s toys — made in China,” the ad says.

“Rahall’s vote helped foreign companies create Chinese jobs making windmills. With skyrocketing unemployment, only a politician who’s been in Washington for 34 years would vote to help foreign companies making Chinese windmills.”

2. “Thank You”

Former Rep. Zack Space not only lost his seat in the 2010 election, but the Ohio Democrat also debuted one of the most over-the-top China ads of the cycle. In the spot, he claims his Republican opponent, now Rep. Bob Gibbs, sent Ohio jobs to — you guessed it — China.

“As they say in China, ‘xie xie Mr. Gibbs!’” the narrator says as a Chinese dragon dances across the screen.

3. “Chinese Professor”

In one of the slickest ads of the cycle, made by Citizens Against Government Waste, students in a Chinese classroom in 2030 study the fall of the U.S. empire.

“Of course, we owned most of their debt. … so now they work for us,” the Chinese narrator says to laughter from the audience.

4. “Fight the Debt Limit Extension”

During the 2011 special election to fill the House seat vacated by new Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Republican Mark Amodei aired an ad featuring Chinese soldiers marching on the U.S. Capitol. Amodei won.

“As their debt grew, our fortune grew,” a Chinese news anchor says in heavily accented English as patriotic-sounding Chinese music swells. “And that is how our great empire rose again.”

5. “Modernizing and Growing”

With a not-so-subtle gong kicking off the ad against Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), now Republican senator from Pennsylvania, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hit the candidate for saying in 2008 that “It’s great that China is modernizing and growing.”

At the end of the 2010 spot, a fortune cookie cracks open. Inside, the piece of paper features a sad face with the words, “Pat Toomey. He’s not for you.”

6. “Baron Hill’s Failed Policies”

This 2010 NRCC ad also opens with a gong as it accuses then-Rep. Baron Hill, a Democrat, of running for Congress not in Indiana — but (where else?) China. In striking red and yellow imagery, graphic fists are raised to stereotypical music.

“Baron Hill — for Indiana or China?” the narrator asks.

7. “Economic Plan”

Lee Fisher made an unsuccessful bid for Senate as Ohio’s Democratic nominee but lost to current Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, in the 2010 cycle.

The ad opens with a narrator saying, “Congressman Rob Portman knows how to grow the economy — in China.” As the spot draws to a close, the narrator lists outsourcing, bad trade deals and soaring deficits as Portman’s biggest problems — and the phrases turn into the stars on the Chinese flag.

8. “Sharron Angle: A Foreign Worker’s Best Friend”

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) bashed Sharron Angle as “a foreign worker’s best friend” in a spot he ran during the vicious 2010 campaign. The ad kicks off with the narrator praising the Nevada Democrat’s record before shifting its focus to Angle and her support of outsourcing jobs to China.

“I’m not in the business of creating jobs,” Angle says in a news clip. “At least not here in Nevada,” the narrator jumps in.

9. “Precisely”

Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer slammed her Republican opponent Carly Fiorina for outsourcing jobs while Hewlett-Packard CEO — and “proudly stamping her products ‘made in China.’”

Boxer won reelection.