In trying to anticipate Monday night’s debate, we’re all thinking about Benghazi.  (Well, all of us except the New York Times, in whose Sunday edition the word does not appear.)  But the White House has more or less gone silent on Benghazi in the last few days, refusing to answer questions about it.  And they have to know that Romney will know the timelines backwards and forwards, ready to remind people of what they know they’ve heard.

What if, instead of trying to rebut the charges – surely a futile task – President Obama tries instead to divert attention?  Where would they turn.

I think the answer is China.  First, reports are that the administration is going to trot out a 5-year-old video from Mitt Romney’s last presidential run, showing him, ah, not hating China.  Here’s what he says:

You know, I think it’s important first for the American people and our leadership to understand that China is not like the Soviet Union of old.  The Soviet Union, Khrushchev in particular, wanted to bury us.  China doesn’t want to bury us, they want to see us succeed and thrive so that we can buy more Chinese products and they’re a competitor economically.  More power to ‘em, we know how to compete.  We want to make sure that competition is fair and legal, and that they protect our intellectual property rights and that they have a monetary policy that’s fair, so we’ve got some challenges to make sure that the playing field is level with China, but we can compete, we can be successful with China, and I will reach out to them, I’ve already met with their leadership and will do so again if I’m lucky enough to be president. Making China a partner for stability in the world will be one of my highest priorities.

China is really key in many respects as they become a very large economy; their GNP is going to surpass ours at some point just given the scale of the nation’s population.  We have to recognize that they’re going to be an economic powerhouse like us.  And with that reality we gotta make sure that we are friendly, that we understand each other, that we’re open in communicating, and that we’re collaborating on important topics, like keeping North Korea from pursuing the nuclear armament which they’ve begun, getting Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, China and we together will have a great deal of positive influence for stability if we’re able to work that relationship properly.

It’s unclear why the Obama campaign thinks this is damning, but I suppose you could take the words, “China doesn’t want to bury us, they want to see us succeed and thrive so that we can buy more Chinese products,” out of context, and try to portray Romney as a flip-flopper on China.  I don’t think it’ll work.  I think Romney knows what he said, and in his calm, smooth, reassuring style will remind us that he was insisting that we make China play by the rules, because it’s in everyone’s interest.

I suppose it’s also possible that they’ll use the second half of the statement to claim that Romney is naive on China.  But coming from a president whose naivete on the Middle East is unsurpassed in several generations, and whose “pivot to Asia” is about to be undermined by drastic budget cuts to the Navy, that probably won’t work too well, either.

Obama may also try to use China to salvage his Solyndra payoff investment, inasmuch as that company’s remnants are suing Chinese solar companies, trying to blame them for Solyndra’s failed business model.  Doing that would give him a two-fer: getting to play the Romney-the-outsourcer card, while saying that China is eating our lunch on green technologies, and that he’s the guy to put a stop to it.  (Never mind that China’s paying a heavy price for its own market interventions, even as they continue to blame the West for it.)

So keep an eye on China this evening.  That may be where the real fireworks come from.