By FOSTER KLUG (AP)

WASHINGTON — China is once again the country Congress loves to hate.

After a lull last year, U.S. politicians jockeying ahead of crucial November elections have stepped up attacks on China as a way to win support from voters worried that the Asian power is taking American jobs.

China-bashing eased during President Barack Obama’s first year in office, partly as a nod to the administration’s attempts to get Chinese help settling nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran, and on important environmental and economic initiatives.

Now, with little to show from Obama’s charm offensive and a looming make-or-break election, lawmakers want tough action against what manufacturers say is a Chinese currency policy that hurts millions of American workers by making Chinese products cheaper and U.S. products more expensive.

U.S.-China ties are already battered following the recent announcement of a multibillion dollar U.S. arms sale to Chinese rival Taiwan and a meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama, revered by millions but accused by Beijing of pushing for Tibetan independence. Attacks on China might add more irritation to a relationship the White House portrays as the world’s most important and most complicated.

American politicians, however, have calculated that raising China as an economic boogeyman can help them connect with voters afraid of losing work to foreign competitors.

“They take our markets and take our jobs,” Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter said of China when he confronted Obama at a public meeting last month. Specter, who is in a tough primary race in the Rust Belt state of Pennsylvania, said Chinese subsidies and what he called dumping are “a form of international banditry.”

Read more via The Associated Press: US lawmakers attack China ahead of Nov. elections.