No matter how much he trashes the country, the Chinese media love The Donald.
Even as China’s government has refused to comment on Trump’s diatribes, a survey of both official state media and social media networks reveals that a growing contingent of Chinese believe the mogul’s potential presidency could actually end up benefiting China—perhaps more so than a President Hillary Clinton, whose criticism of the country’s human rights record infuriates Chinese leaders. Some Chinese admire Trump’s glitzy businesses, big-name brand and candid personality. Others genuinely think the candidate’s “America First” foreign policy positions would give China the upper hand in Sino-American relations and allow more room for China to assert itself on the world stage.
.. “Trump is very, very popular among Chinese Internet users,” says Kecheng Fang, a former reporter in China who now researches Chinese media at the University of Pennsylvania.
.. Much of the Trump support in China boils down to his reputation overseas as a shrewd entrepreneur—an image that surely resonates with China’s plutocrats and aspirers. (“China today has this obsession with successful businessmen,” Shen notes.)
.. Beyond just Trump’s brand, many Chinese believe his business acumen would translate into political pragmatism on matters of national security and foreign policy—which would play to China’s advantage. Trump has repeatedly questioned the wisdom of maintaining American military bases and warships in the region, arguing that they cost the United States money while allowing allies like Japan to mooch off American support in their squabbles with China in the East and South China seas.
.. A Global Times op-ed published a day after Trump’s Times interview reads, “It is hence predictable that if Trump is elected president, he will choose to cooperate with China, from which Japan will fail to benefit.”
.. An article published last month in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, noted that Trump’s snubs toward America’s Asian allies, namely Japan and South Korea, will allow China to become the dominant military power in the Pacific. Because the South China Sea isn’t oil rich, a Trump-led military would likely turn its attention away from Asia and toward the Middle East, says Shen, who last month published a widely circulated article in The Paper headlined “Do Not Rush to Say Trump Is Crazy.” “It seems like [Trump] only wants to get involved in something militarily when there is a business benefit,” Shen argues.
.. On economic issues, Trump has been much more aggressively anti-China; his tax and anti-currency manipulation proposals have even raised the prospect of a trade war. But many Chinese observers see these “tough” positions as bluster—part of Trump’s appeal to Republican voters at home—and believe he would soften his stance once in office.
.. The “pivot to Asia”—a push during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state to increase America’s military presence and advance human rights in the region—has long been a source of anxiety for the Chinese, who see it as an attempt by the United States to control and suppress China’s rise. That policy, which Chinese associate closely with Clinton, has caused “dissatisfaction among Chinese netizens,
..
“Trump and [Bernie] Sanders’ rise clearly shows that Americans have lost confidence in their political system,” the author wrote.
Which is only a good thing for China. “Our nation’s strength is growing, while America’s is declining,” a recent article in the tabloid reads.
The Cost of the Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later
When Xi Zhongxun—the father of China’s current President, Xi Jinping—was dragged before a crowd, he was accused, among other things, of having gazed at West Berlin through binoculars during a visit to East Germany.
.. What effect did the Cultural Revolution have on China’s soul? This is still not a subject that can be openly debated, at least not easily. The Communist Party strictly constrains discussion of the period for fear that it will lead to a full-scale reëxamination of Mao’s legacy, and of the Party’s role in Chinese history.
.. In January, 2014, alumni of the Experimental Middle School of Beijing Normal University apologized to their former teachers for their part in a surge of violence in August, 1966, when Bian Zhongyun, the deputy principal, was beaten to death. But such gestures are rare, and outsiders often find it hard to understand why survivors of the Cultural Revolution are loath to revisit an experience that shaped their lives so profoundly. One explanation is that the events of that period were so convoluted that many people feel the dual burdens of being both perpetrators and victims.
.. for the first time, pursued critics of his government even when they are living outside mainland China. In recent months, Chinese security services have abducted opponents from Thailand, Myanmar, and Hong Kong.
.. In other words, in every interaction, the question that matters is which force wins and which force loses. Mao and his generation, who grew up amid scarcity, saw no room for power-sharing or for pluralism; he called for “drawing a clear distinction between us and the enemy.” “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” This, Mao said, was “a question of first importance for the revolution.” China today, in many respects, bears little comparison with the world that Mao inhabited, but on that question Xi Jinping is true to his roots.
What Apple Has to Fear from China
But Cook couldn’t assuage fears about the biggest reason for the revenue decline: a twenty-six-per-cent drop in sales in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, accounting for fifty-eight per cent of the over-all decline in Apple’s growth.
.. China is enormously important to Apple and other tech companies right now. The country’s billion-plus consumers represent a tremendous opportunity for growth. When China’s economy slows, as it has recently, Apple’s revenues are inevitably hurt.
.. China views the proliferation of Western, and especially U.S., technology as a stealth attempt to assert American economic and political power at its expense. Through that lens, blocking Western content and Western companies is an act of national defense. It is also a challenge to the notion of a liberating and open Internet, and China, in particular, has tried to build a wall around its citizens, not only via censorship and surveillance but by acting to limit the influence of foreign companies and organizations that might undermine Communist Party control.
.. The pace at which China is building its walled-off world, filled with hardware and software created by Chinese companies, with only selectively allowed non-Chinese content, is accelerating.
Working-Class Fraud
With Trump, you can be sure of one thing: He will betray those people. We know this because he already has. Wage stagnation is the most glaring symptom of a declining middle class. Trump’s solution? He believes that “wages are too high.”
.. Well then, how about the maids, bartenders and food servers at his five-star hotel in Las Vegas? They’ve been protesting in front of his gilded monolith because he will not allow them to join a union, which could raise their pay an additional $3 an hour. China and Mexico are not a problem there. Other hotels in Vegas pay union wages. Las Vegas is one of the few success stories for low-skilled people looking to ride an escalator to a better life. But Trump, the working class zero, is sticking it to them.
.. But even China is losing $10 billion a year on its struggling steel industry. Manufacturing jobs are in global decline, as robots replace people. “When I’m president,” said Trump, waving his hand as if holding a magic wand, “steel is coming back to Pittsburgh!” No sane economist, or even steel industry shill, believes this.