openpolitics.com

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.