The Los Angeles Times reports on Chinese coverage of the U.S. election:
To the Chinese, who are spared by the one-party communist system such complications as an electoral college and party caucuses, the spectacle unfolding in the United States is not a very tempting advertisement for democracy.
“A lot of people think Western-style democracy is a joke — it’s more like a pop idol contest or a beauty pageant,” said Pan Xiaoli, an anchorwoman for International Channel Shanghai, an English-language TV station. “I think the Chinese watch with a sense of inherent superiority, saying, ‘This is not the way for us.’ ”
Yet if the Chinese think the U.S. presidential campaign is chaotic and unseemly, there is good reason. Chinese coverage has not exactly highlighted the more flattering aspects of the American political process.
For more on Chinese views of the U.S. election, see this CDT post.
