The death of US Senator Lindsey Graham has removed one of Washington’s most influential advocates of a hardline approach towards China at a moment when Republicans are debating how aggressively the United States should confront Beijing and project military power overseas.
On Monday, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to fill the vacant Senate seat. McMaster said he spoke with Nordone by phone on Sunday and she agreed to serve.
Attention is now turning to whether Nordone, or anyone else, will inherit the late lawmaker’s unusually prominent role as both a congressional China hawk and a close foreign policy adviser to US President Donald Trump.
“I promise to work hard over the next several months, to support the president, and carry forward the efforts of my brother,” Nordone said. “I know Lindsey thought the world of his staff and colleagues, and with their support, I feel confident.”
Graham, who served in Congress for more than three decades, first in the House and later in the Senate, died on Saturday night from an aortic dissection – a tear in the body’s main artery – according to a preliminary report from the Washington medical examiner’s office.
While Graham was best known internationally for his outspoken support for Ukraine and Israel, China had increasingly become one of his defining foreign policy concerns in recent years. He repeatedly argued that Beijing posed one of the greatest long-term strategic challenges facing the United States and called for Washington to adopt a more confrontational posture.
“He is one of the heads of the war party in Washington,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow for foreign policy at the Cato Institute. “He is an uber hawk, and basically hawkish against most everyone.”
A hardline approach towards China
Graham had long pushed for a tougher approach towards Beijing, including urging Washington to prepare for the possibility of military conflict over Taiwan.
In 2023, after NBC News reported that Beijing was preparing for a possible move to reunify Taiwan, Graham called on Congress to approve “a robust defence supplemental” for Taiwan and draft “pre-invasion sanctions from hell” against Beijing.
“I support the One China Policy, but I also support freedom and democracy,” Graham said at the time. “Apparently China sees weakness when it comes to the United States.”
He also defended then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial 2022 visit to Taiwan despite Beijing’s military response and repeated warnings against the trip, saying he had been “hard on China before it was cool”.
Beijing views Taiwan as part of China and has vowed to bring the self-governed island under its control by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state. However, Washington opposes any attempt to change the status quo by force and remains committed to helping Taiwan defend itself.
Graham also backed efforts to force ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to divest the popular video-sharing app.
“TikTok as it exists today is a national security nightmare for the United States,” Graham wrote on X in early 2025, urging the app to be placed under new ownership.
In one of his final public comments on China, however, Graham placed greater emphasis on Beijing’s potential role in helping end the conflict in Ukraine.
“The road to ending this war, the road to peace, passes through Beijing more than it does Washington, Kyiv or Moscow,” Graham said in Kyiv. “China has an oversized influence. I’d like them to use their influence for the good of the world.”
Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times responded with a sharply worded opinion piece criticising Graham’s remarks and accusing Washington of shifting responsibility onto Beijing after helping to fuel the conflict.
The commentary said the United States had been eager to escalate during the war but was now demanding that others “act responsibly” for peace.
Who could fill Graham’s foreign policy role?
Graham’s death comes as Republican foreign policy debates are increasingly divided between traditional interventionists who favour an assertive US role overseas and a newer wing that is more sceptical of military commitments abroad.
Although Graham was a vocal critic of Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, the two later forged a close political alliance, with the South Carolina senator becoming one of the president’s closest advisers on national security issues.
Bandow said Graham’s death could affect US foreign policy because of the influence he wielded with Trump, describing the senator as a “Trump whisperer” who often encouraged the president to adopt more hawkish foreign-policy positions.
Still, Bandow argued that Graham’s greatest influence was in shaping public debate, as he was a frequent guest on television and used his media appearances to advocate for his foreign policy views.
“He mattered in the sense of popularising ideas, promoting them and getting attention,” Bandow said. “It’s going to produce some subtle shifts in how the power game in Washington is played.”
Another question facing Republicans is whether anyone will emerge to occupy Graham’s unique position at the intersection of congressional foreign policy hawks and Trump’s inner circle.
The appointment of Nordone has only added to that uncertainty. Unlike her brother, she has no known political background or foreign policy experience. According to the New York Times, she is a mother of two and has worked to help people with disabilities find jobs.
Whether she can assume Graham’s influential role in shaping Republican foreign policy, particularly on managing Washington’s increasingly contentious relationship with Beijing, remains to be seen. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
