More to the point, it is prior to Trump's meeting with Xi at Mar-a-Lago, which took place in early April.
Posted on 06/09/2017 9:51:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The first meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly take place in April in Florida. Observers have already begun to guess what issues will be put on the agenda at this two-day summit. North Korea, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and trade imbalance between the world’s two biggest economies are all thorny issues to deal with at any time, let alone during the great uncertainty created by the Trump administration.
It’s not easy to forget the strong criticism Trump had for China during his campaign. He accused China of manipulating its currency and stealing American jobs, and threatened to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Moreover, since the election, his policies toward China have developed in unpredictable directions. Trump’s unexpected phone call with Taiwan’s president broke with diplomatic norms, sent mixed messages, and triggered tons of speculation. It also sparked an official complaint from the Chinese government. Then Trump eased the tensions by promising to abide by the long-standing “One China” policy in another phone call with President Xi Jinping.
Against this background, it’s intriguing to see that Trump is still curiously welcomed among Chinese netizens on social media. In both America and China, Trump has received much attention because of his unorthodox behavior since he announced his run for the presidency. However, when media in the United States bashed him or dismissed him as a joke, discussions on Chinese social media took him much more seriously.
Before the election, on Zhihu, a popular Chinese question-and-answer site that encourages opinion-sharing, users asked and debated questions like “how likely is Donald Trump to be elected as president of the United States?” After he became the president-elect, netizens kept discussing questions such as “how far do you think Trump will be marching forward?” and “what can we learn from Trump?” The number of followers of topics centered on Trump is huge – nearly seven times as many as the number of followers of topics on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the election.
Of course, attention does not necessarily mean support. But there are also a great number of Chinese netizens who openly express their appreciation and respect for Trump. On Baidu Tieba, or Baidu Post Bar, one of the hottest online communities in China, supporters built a Trump Tieba with an explicit line of approval on the top of its first page – “Here is the place for Trump supporters.” As of this writing, there are 653,524 posts on Trump Tieba. By contrast, posts on Hillary Tieba are approximately one-third of that number.
It’s unusual to see the incredible generosity that Chinese netizens have shown toward Trump. Consider Trump’s swing on the “One China” policy as an example. The “One China” policy has not only long been regarded as the cornerstone of the U.S.-China relationship, but it is also a sensitive issue that easily drives the emotion of the Chinese public. For China’s authoritarian government, nationalism is a source of legitimacy. When the government spreads propaganda to manage public opinion, maintaining territorial integrity by preventing Taiwan from gaining independence is an emphasis. As a result, Taiwan separatists’ speeches always spark nationalist responses and angry boycotts among Chinese netizens.
However, netizens didn’t react angrily when Trump threw out some anti-China rhetoric, or when he spoke on the phone with Taiwan’s president. The reasons behind Trump’s moves are arguable: is he simply an inexperienced politician, or is each move a calculated part of a wily businessman’s bargaining strategy? Chinese Trump fans greatly prefer the second perspective. Moreover, when someone raised a question on Zhihu, asking whether Trump supporters regretted supporting him after seeing his tough policies on China, one of the answers was telling: “What he has done is exactly what I expected he would do as the president of the United States.” In the minds of his Chinese fans, Trump is a loyal defender of U.S. national interests, which is worth respect, even if it goes against China.
Why does Trump still have so much support among Chinese netizens? After taking a close look at the posts on Trump Tieba, three explanations appear.
First, unlike Americans’ fear of Trump’s authoritarian, strongman style, Chinese netizens appreciate it, or at least do not hate it. Thomas Jefferson once said, “People get the government they deserve.” It is not very fair to apply this quote to the Chinese case, because Chinese people do not select their government, and because public opinion in China is censored, manipulated, or even fabricated. But even recognizing those factors, it still can be observed that authoritarian figures have a certain attraction in China. Xi Jinping consolidated his power partially by cultivating a cult of personality. Songs in praise of “Xi Papa” and “Peng Mama” (Peng Liyuan, Xi’s wife) have gone viral online. Similarly, Trump has two popular nicknames on Baidu Tieba. One is “Trump Dad”; another – even more explicit – is “Emperor Trump.”
The second reason for Trump’s popularity is some Chinese netizens’ conservative preferences on certain issues and their aversion to political correctness. In some parts of China, for example, homosexuality is still regarded as an illness. Electric shocks are applied to gays and lesbians as an “effective therapy.” On LGBT issues, some Chinese Trump supporters go to extremes, such as arguing that “the U.S. should ban the spread of homosexual culture” because it is not “normal” and “misleading to teenagers.” Others hold more neutral views. They agree that LGBT groups have the same rights as “ordinary citizens,” but think they should not claim privileges under the slogan of “anti-discrimination.” These people agree with Trump that liberals and political correctness have gone too far.
Interestingly, China has well-known Internet censorship, but there’s no “thought police” to prevent people from expressing opinions that are not “politically correct.” On Trump Tieba, people never even try to conceal their anti-Muslim and anti-black racism. The terms “extreme Muslims” and “terrorists” are interchangeable, and Barack Obama is often referred to as “O-Black” or “Oba-Donkey.” In a country where over 90 percent of the population is part of the Han ethnic group, Chinese netizens are never as sensitive or aware of their tongues as Americans are. They possibly don’t even have a clear sense as to what opinions or behaviors are identified as racism. Because of different social and political norms, they don’t understand the bright side of political correctness, but simply think it is ridiculous. Therefore, Trump is adored because he is outspoken and blatant.
Finally, the image of Trump as a billionaire and pragmatist has certainly won him a lot of Chinese fans. To quote former leader Deng Xiaoping, “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white. As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.” China’s economic miracle has been guided by Deng’s famous pragmatism, and economic development has been China’s first priority for over three decades. To some degree, Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” echoes “the Chinese Dream,” that is, “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” For Chinese people who are so inspired by and obsessed with economic success, something like an “All-Gender” restroom bill almost makes no sense. It does not save America; even debating it is seen as a waste of public resources. In this sense, Trump is regarded as a brave person who “faces the real crisis of the United States.”
All in all, Trump’s popularity among Chinese Internet users is more than just a curiosity. It might open another window for those Americans who are still confused as to why Trump won to understand why their own compatriots voted for him.
*****
Yan Gu is a Ph.D. candidate at Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Her research interests lie in authoritarian politics, political communication, and automatic text analysis, with a focus in China. She was a journalist and commentator at state-owned media in China, as well as a news editor of Tencent, a leading Chinese Internet company.
Why wouldn’t they?
The Chinese are clever.
Respect of the Alpha male cross language and cultural barriers.
Fromm the article:
“Interestingly, China has well-known Internet censorship, but there’s no “thought police” to prevent people from expressing opinions that are not “politically correct.”
__________________________________________________________
This is what I mean when I say that in someways there is more freedom of speech in China than the US. The rub comes when the Chinese go from the spoken to the written. There are things you can’t write down. There isn’t much, among friends that you can’t say.
A man who says what he means and backs it up with action always gets respect. The fact that our American President already had a worldwide following is a “Trump card.” The anti-American media gets crazier by the day trying to make this somehow a bad thing in order to make Hillary feel better.
This article is from March.
Great article. I respect the Chinese more and more as I learn about them. I don’t agree with everything they do but they have a lot to recommend their society.
My thought exactly. Why wouldn’t they like him. He is a businessman with style.
That is easy to like in Chinese Mainland culture where middle and upper classes have become the worlds most successful capitalist and doing quite well for themselves.
So it's older than you are, JohnyBoy. So what?
I doubt that China has changed much in two and a half months.
I’m an expat living in China, and this article is dead on the money. It leaves out two details, however:
1) On a business level Trump will be well aware of the Chinese need to save ‘face’. Therefore whatever rhetoric or posturing we may perceive, is almost never what it seems. By giving Peng a way to preserve his respect, he is winning their respect also.
2) He is tall, handsome, blond, and a billionaire. He has a wife decades his junior, and beautiful children who are also smart and successful. He lives in a golden palace, flies in his own jets, and his granddaughter caused an internet sensation by singing in Chinese. In short, he is everything the Chinese aspire to be, rightly or wrongly.
More to the point, it is prior to Trump's meeting with Xi at Mar-a-Lago, which took place in early April.
I was studying on YouTube the First Lady of China, Peng Liyuan, and she is quite a remarkable woman, and apparently much more famous and popular than her husband, President Xi.
And I found a beautiful YouTube her, a kind of nationalist pride song which is beautifully sung. >p>The point is: she seems very much in line with Trump's thinking that nurturing national pride is very important. Click the picture below to see YouTube with the nationalist words below it:
The song is composed with great enthusiasm
The song is sung with our sincere love
The song excites us like burning fire in our hearts.
The song encourages us to go through hard times.
When the national anthem is sung.
When the national anthem is sung.
It is the rhythm of our life.
When the national anthem is sung
When the national anthem is sung
It is for the revival of the Chinese nationality
Advance, advance, advance
We keep on struggling in our life time.
The song leads us to our ideal.
The song inspires us to strive
The song gives us glories and dreams
The song leaves us unforgettable memories
When the national anthem is sung
When the national anthem is sung
It is the rhythm of our life...
*Bump*
You’re kidding, right? “”
No actually I’m not joking or kidding.
I received a PhD from a Chinese university.
I worked in universities in the US
There is, despite the presence of a party official that must approve all academic research on each campus, less PC type pressure and harassment in a Chinese university than there is in a US university. I have sat at table with Chinese academics and listened to them disparage their government. Sometimes the stories were quite funny. They felt no inhibitions at all about talking about it. But they told me, “We probably can’t put that in print.”
There just isn’t the all pervasive atmosphere of watching what you say to avoid offending some snowflake in the administration that there is in the US.
I lived in China. I’ve talked to Chinese (My wife is Chinese)
I am not saying they can’t improve and don’t need to improve but there is more freedom of speech in China than in many places in the US. The PRC is basically a sort of semi-benign military dictatorship (At least domestically) and it isn’t a place where you want to get sideways with the law. But,the internet minders are, in a lot of respects a joke. My first week at Central China Normal University the technician that set up my email showed me how to avoid them.
Years later my wife and I were robbed and had to file a police report. We needed to use a computer to send an email to Hong Kong. The police let us use one in a room where the police were supposedly looking for anti-PRC websites. In reality, the police were all playing Grand Theft Auto with each other. (Sort of fitting given the corruption in China)
I’ve also attended churches in China. Under Chairman Mao there was a lot of persecution. But there is very little today. The legal churches are hardly bothered at all. The pastors are not told what they can and cannot say any more than they are in the US. Sometimes, especially in the cities dominated by Muslims the house churches are but even then it is less than many people think. But the issues are not that much greater than those faced by churches in the US who deal with leftwing zoning boards and over zealous HOAs. Once again there is room for improvement.
You can’t use missionary stories from the 1950’s and 1960’s to understand the PRC today. It isn’t really even the same country in a lot of ways
The US population is no more free than the people in the PRC.
I enjoyed reading your informative post. Thanks for writing it.
My housemate insists that you are far more right than wrong. Orwell was right—about truth being a subversive act in a tyrannical context. Paradoxes abound.
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