“Trump and Kamala Harris are two cups of poison for Beijing.” Zhao Minghao from Fudan University in Shanghai told the Financial Times:. “Both see China as a competitor or even an adversary.”
Unfortunately, the poison analogy has spread among China's elites.
One of China's most widely cited scholars, Shi Yinghong of Renmin University, says that China's hopes arethe lesser of two evils' will be selected. Chinese leaders, who have already had to deal with President Trump for four years, unfortunately did not get a favorable outcome and are not looking forward to another term.
During the election period, Americans recognized that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump's China policies were widely divergent. Chinese observers, on the other hand, saw the two as nearly identical.
To the Chinese Communist Party and its tightly controlled academia, America is seen as a threat. As a result, there is a wide gap in perception between Americans and Chinese people. Over the past five years, its scope seems to have expanded even further.
Officially, the Chinese government wants to be friends with the United States. President Xi Jinping is Congratulatory message to Mr. Trumptalked about finding “the right way for China and the United States to get along with each other in the new era.”
President Xi's Foreign Ministry said China maintains an unchanging stance toward the United States.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “China's policy toward the United States is consistent.'' said After the election. “We will continue to view and manage bilateral relations based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.”
Other official comments were also less positive. In May 2019, the Party's self-proclaimed “spokesperson” and China's most authoritative publication, People's Daily, published a groundbreaking editorial. Declaring a “people's war” against the United States.
Americans may think they can ignore hostile propaganda, but the word has special meaning for the Communist Party.
“The people's war is a total war, and its strategy and tactics include the mobilization of all political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, military, and other power resources, and the integrated use of multiple forms of struggle and combat methods. It is necessary.” The People's Liberation Army Daily declared in a column published in March 2023.the official news site of the People's Liberation Army. The military reports to the party.
Why is China's establishment so hostile? The Chinese Communist Party views America as an existential threat, not because of anything Americans have ever said or done, but because of who Americans are and what they stand for.
Beijing's unstable establishment fears the impact of American ideals and forms of government on impressing the Chinese. This means that even in the best of times, America's mere presence would be seen as a direct threat to communist rule.
The perceived threat to the party increased when President Trump was in the Oval Office. In his first term, he Widely popular among ordinary Chinese people In China. There are many explanations for this phenomenon, but I think the most fundamental is that he was, and still is, hated by the privileged class.
Therefore, the Chinese people empathize with President Trump, who led a revolt against America's coastal business, cultural, and academic classes.
“I deeply resent the hypocritical self-righteous elites and wholeheartedly welcome the return of President Trump’s salt-of-the-earth approach,” Charles Burton of the think tank Synopsis told me last week. “I think the Chinese think the same way as the tens of millions of Americans who voted for an outsider, a billionaire.”
“Trump is giving inspiration to the Chinese people that they, too, can wipe out the elites,” Barton added.
Moreover, Trump provided ordinary Chinese with a contrast with their leader. Xi Jinping rarely appears in public, except for official occasions. On very rare occasions, he goes out into the crowd – as he did in December 2013. I went to a Beijing manju shop.For example, this event is staged by propaganda authorities.
Mr. Xi always speaks in formal Communist party language that is scripted, humorless, and full of ideological expressions. His predecessor, Hu Jintao, was even less graphic. Of course, Trump is the opposite: he has no filters and is always ready to break the norm. He is a breath of fresh air (strong wind?).
Di Dongsheng of Renmin University in Beijing said this in November 2020 at a widely publicized live streaming event in China. talked about How Chinese leaders have used Wall Street, “America's core power,'' in the past As he says, “old friends” will tell the American president what to do. Dee also said those ties to the White House were severed during the Trump administration. In short, Trump was not willing to accept advice from East Coast elites.
So it's no wonder why Chinese leaders consider President Trump a poison. They fear that they cannot talk to him through their friends in the American upper class, and they do not want him near the lower class in China.
Gordon G. Chan Author of Plan Red: China's Plan to Destroy America and China's Coming Collapse.
