The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has dominated Chinese headlines and social media through the weekend. While speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania this Saturday, former President Trump was grazed on the ear by a would-be-assassin’s bullet. One spectator was killed, and two others critically wounded. The shooter was fatally shot by the Secret Service.
The official Chinese response has been cautiously muted. State-media news agency Xinhua was the first Chinese outlet to report the attack. At 6:38, 27 minutes after the shots were fired in Pennsylvania, a Xinhua account for international news posted to Weibo: “Former President Donald Trump escorted from Pennsylvania rally by Secret Service personnel after loud sounds emanate from crowd during speech.” As news of the shooting broke in the United States, Chinese state- and private-media outlets reported developments in the story. While a number of world leaders publicly conveyed their personal condolences to Donald Trump or issued statements on the shooting, Xi Jinping has not as of publication. Instead, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a short statement in response to a question from an unidentified reporter. “Question: Former U.S. President Donald Trump was shot while attending an election rally, what is China’s comment? Answer: The Chinese government is aware of the attack against former President Trump. Chairman Xi Jinping has already extended his sympathies to former President Trump.” No details on how, exactly, Xi extended his sympathies were offered. On X, Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, wrote, “We wish Mr. Trump and all the injured a speedy recovery.”
Chinese social media, on the other hand, has been ablaze with commentary. For most of the first 24 hours following the shooting, news of the attack led Weibo’s “hot topics” list. Discussion ranged between shock and concern, wild conspiracy theories, and awe at Trump’s luck. Many mocked American gun violence using a phrase once posted by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “America the Free, where shootings occur daily.” Unfounded conspiracy theories put forward on Weibo included suggestions that the attack had been ordered by Biden and the Democratic Party, or by Ukraine. Jin Canrong, a professor at Beijing’s prestigious Renmin University of China infamous for his provocative rhetoric, speculated in an interview with the ultranationalist news site Guancha that the assassination attempt was carried out by the American “deep state”:
Jin Canrong: “Last year on June 29, during a working lunch with the chairman of the Eurasia Group, who is exceedingly knowledgeable about American politics, he asserted that the Wall Street-controlled ‘deep state’ will never allow Trump to assume office. In 2016, they were careless.
“They won’t make that same mistake again. Some hypothesize that this was the deep state issuing a warning to Trump, in hopes that he would take a more centrist approach. In fact, we can see that many of Trump’s positions are softer than they were in 2016. He is adjusting. Of course, this is just a guess. The price would be too high. We can see that this has been helpful to Trump and the GOP—but it remains unclear how it will play out down the line.” [Chinese]
Many asked whether the shooting might have been self-directed—an example of the “Bitter Flesh Strategy,” one of the “Thirty-Six Stratagems” mentioned in a sixth-century essay on politics and war. Those pondering whether the shooting was staged often drew a connection to Taiwanese politics, such as: “Damn. Taking a page from A-Bian [Chen Shui-bian]?” The night before the 2004 Taiwanese election, DPP incumbent presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian and his running mate, incumbent vice-president Annette Lu, were shot while campaigning in the southwestern city of Tainan. Neither was seriously injured, and the case was never solved. Chen and Lu won at the polls the following day. Many in China hold—without evidence—that Chen faked the shooting to boost his popularity and improve his chances in the election. The unfounded claim has been echoed by Chinese state media. On Weibo, comments ranged from questions like “Is he [Trump] following the Chen playbook?” to comments on the potential electoral impact: “Given how the Chen assassination case played out, it would’ve been better [for Trump] if it had happened the day before the election.” Hong Kong outlet The Standard was able to interview Chen about the Trump attack, quoting him saying: “I was shot in the stomach while [Trump] was shot in the ear. This incident reminds us to be extra careful.” Chen also added that he regrets that the 2004 incident was never solved, and denied having planned it himself.
The attempt on Trump’s life has also been compared to the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe while speaking at a campaign rally in July of 2022. In that instance, Chinese social media was awash with ghoulish jokes and outright glee. A post saying, “Let the celebrations begin!” garnered over 150,000 likes on Weibo. (In 2023, a Chinese high school put on a skit reenacting the assassination, tying it to the release of treated nuclear wastewater from Fukushima.) After the attempted assassination of Trump, there was little glee among Chinese social media comments, although dark humor still prevailed. One of the top responses under state broadcaster CCTV’s Weibo post about the Trump attack read: “Breaking news ~ today’s bilateral meeting between Trump and Abe has been postponed [doge emoji] [doge emoji].” Similar jokes were widespread on U.S. social media, and at times cross-pollinated. A joke originally posted on X drawing connections between Abe and Trump was widely recirculated on Weibo. The meme featured side-by-side photographs of Trump staring at the sun and Abe, ostensibly in heaven, with the caption, “You redirected the bullet didn’t you? Crazy yellow bastard,” with Abe responding “No one shall harm my nakama,” or “comrade.” (The racial epithet in the original English was omitted from the automated Google translation in the screenshot that circulated on Weibo.) One of the top comments underneath the Weibo post sharing the meme, a photo response, was censored—indicating some site- or state-imposed limits on the joke.
News of the Trump shooting does not appear to have been subject to heavy censorship. Using a tool developed by Citizen Lab, CDT found that “God Bless America” is a censored search term on Weibo. It is unclear whether the phrase was newly censored in the aftermath of the Trump shooting, or if the censorship tracking tool simply picked up on the censorship for the first time. The Citizen Lab tool also found that Sogou, a search engine, was “soft censoring” results for “assassinated + leader” and “Trump attacked + t-shirt,” meaning that results were limited to articles from state-approved outlets.
Perhaps the most surreal response to the news came from Chinese investors. When Chinese markets opened on Monday morning, share prices in the firm Wisesoft Co., Ltd. surged. The company, which has been losing money, is not an obviously attractive investment. It seems the entire provenance of the bump in share prices is that the firm’s Chinese name, 川大智胜 (Chuāndà zhìshèng), is a near homophone of “Trump outwits.” Similar instances have occurred in the past: after Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou was allowed to return to China after a years-long house arrest in Canada upon reaching a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S., a firm with a homophonous name to Meng’s gained on the A-market, too.
Much Chinese expert commentary centered on the same question that is being asked in America: how will this influence the election? The overwhelming majority of comments asserted that the attack, and Trump’s immediate response—raising his fist and saying, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”—have guaranteed his victory. Shanghai writer Wei Zhou asked in the title of a WeChat essay “Will Trump Win?” The answer: “It seems likely.” The Beijing News, a Party-owned paper, published an opinion piece on WeChat asserting that Trump’s victimhood might absolve him of his role in directing a mob to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A selection of the Beijing News op-ed is translated below:
When compared with the inarticulate, stiff, and gaffe-prone Biden of the first television debate and the NATO summit press conference, Trump’s new identity as a shooting victim and tough guy will completely overpower Biden’s portrayal of himself as a man of experience, making Biden look even weaker.
The attempted assassination of Trump will allow him to cast off his negative political image. Since the storming of the Capitol on January 6, Trump has been viewed as the primary driver of political violence. This is one of the Democratic Party’s main rhetorical attacks on Trump. Now that Trump has become a victim of gun violence—especially if it turns out that Trump’s attacker had a political motive—he will have become a victim of political violence.
[…] Inflaming emotions was the secret to Trump’s 2016 victory. In contrast, Biden’s team has not yet weathered the crisis of calls for Biden to bow out of the race. In fact, ever greater numbers of Democratic lawmakers and donors are joining the ranks of those asking him to drop out. One side is united by a common hatred, while the other is in endless disarray. If the status quo holds, this year’s American election will not be suspenseful. [Chinese]
Other Chinese analysts predicted that the shooting will create a rally-’round-the-flag effect for Trump, allowing him to more completely dominate the GOP. Sanlian Lifeweek, a culture and news magazine published in Beijing, interviewed a fellow at Tsinghua University’s prestigious Center for International Security and Strategy to make sense of the impact of the attack. CDT has translated relevant portions of the article:
In a phone interview, Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, told [Sanlian Lifeweek] that the unsuccessful assassination attempt will create a sort of “rally effect” around Trump and the Republican Party. Furthermore, the GOP Convention, which opens on June 15, will become a “unity conference” for that party. He mentioned that there has been no shortage of resistance to Trump and his policies among the GOP establishment. In their eyes, Trump’s refusal to recognize his electoral defeat in 2020—and his supporters’ armed storming of the Capitol—threatened the foundation of “American democracy.” They also have some differences with Trump on the issues of race and border control. “But after this incident, the GOP’s internal contention over specific policies will be overshadowed by political violence. In the short term, everyone will rally around Trump and focus on condemning this incident rather than discussing policy differences.”
[…] Sun Chenghao believes that the Democratic Party’s political advertisements that included rhetoric attacking Trump are seen by the GOP as having incited this violent action. This has trapped Biden’s team in a no-win situation, as going forward Trump’s camp will use this incident to attack Biden.
[…] Sun Chenghao cited American voters’ “sense of disenfranchisement” as a psychosocial factor underlying the assassination attempt: “Even though things are not actually that bad, many people are dissatisfied, feeling that ‘each generation is worse off than the last.’ The new generation is exhausted and anxious about their shrinking share in the dividends of America’s role as a great world power. Many people then aim their anger at immigrants and non-white ethnic minorities—even though the central issue remains economic.” When economic and social issues are compounded, it makes a cohort of people gradually lose their faith in the system “because election after election, the problems remain unsolved.” [Chinese]
Ren Yi, a nationalistic blogger who writes under the pen name “Chairman Rabbit” and is the grandson of the late prominent Party leader Ren Zhongyi, shared his thoughts on the shooting in a WeChat article titled, “A Gun Creates ‘God’s Chosen One.’” In the essay, Ren attributed enormous importance to the attack, writing that a feature of American electoral politics is that “every gun-toting member of the public has a chance to rewrite history.” A selection of Ren’s thoughts are translated below:
Trump’s transformation into “God’s Chosen One” will only make him worse. As soon as Trump realized that he was not seriously hurt and stood back up at the podium, his intuition must have told him: “It’s in the bag.” The joy of surviving a catastrophe must have wiped out all remaining fear and anxiety. He immediately displayed his media savvy and stage presence by turning to the crowd and raising his fist—thus demonstrating his own fighting spirit, heroism, and leadership. Standing underneath the American flag, he is untouchable. Scenes like that are simply tailor-made for Trump. Going forward, Trump’s politics will not undergo any change. (Namely, he will not take a step back or become more moderate due to a fear of assassination.) He will only get worse. As we observe Trump it is clear that he is extremely forceful in his words and actions. He is willful and believes that he has the best judgment in the world. He has an “oiliness” to him specific to old white American men. After surviving this incident, Trump will be more convinced than ever that he is God’s chosen one, that he has a “mandate,” and that he is “doing the Lord’s work.” He will become more confident and emboldened, taking bigger swings and displaying even more contempt for his opponents and less inclination to heed the opinions of his own advisors. As all signs point to even greater extremism, believe this: violence cannot curb extremism, but instead will usher in more. [Chinese]
