Given the potential global consequences of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, it has naturally attracted worldwide attention. In China, initially reticent coverage by state media has given way to editorializing about the “unprecedented chaos” of the race and depictions of American democracy as a “messy” affair. Cartoons published this week by China Daily and the Global Times deride the enormous cost of the election and a “tide” of vitriol that is depicted as being spewed by both political parties, threatening to drown the American public. At the South China Morning Post, Dewey Sim, Hayley Wong, and Sylvie Zhuang described how the election has reverberated across Chinese-language social media and certain Chinese media outlets:
State news agency Xinhua specifically zeroed in on the [subject of immigration] in a report on Monday, saying that both parties have played the “immigration card” and “scapegoated” illegal immigrants.
Another popular topic for China’s domestic media was the vast sums spent during the campaign, with reports citing Bloomberg’s estimate that the total had reached US$14.7 billion this year.
The election was also a trending topic on Chinese social media, with the main hashtag attracting 150 million views on Weibo and 250,000 interactions as of Tuesday evening, with “most evenly matched presidential election in history” also proving one of the most popular searches. [Source]
While there are a range of opinions on the two main candidates, a notable portion of Chinese netizens have expressed admiration for Donald Trump. In a recent Substack article, columnist Wei Zhou explained this phenomenon as follows: “In short, Trump’s America-first, anti-immigration, anti-establishment populism; conspiratorial mindset; and blunt communication style are all very well suited to Chinese society.” China Media Project, on the other hand, translated an article by Initium Media describing how Kamala Harris has been the subject of a torrent of racism and misogyny in some online spaces frequented by Mandarin-speaking audiences:
As we observed and analyzed simplified Chinese posts on X, WeChat Channels, and Douyin (TikTok), where discussions about Harris were concentrated, we found that Harris’s immigrant status and the life experiences of her parents remain important axes that “define” her on this side of the information ecosystem. Interestingly, however, we found that the very narrative that her supporters have tried to put front and center — that she is the exemplary daughter of an immigrant family — is entirely undermined in this ecosystem.
[…] In the small world of WeChat Moments, chat groups, and WeChat Channels, text and image content has a harder time surviving against platform censorship and users habits — in stark contrast to X, where abusive language, and content about politics, democracy, and elections can thrive. In these WeChat spaces, if posts hope to attract thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of views, they must at least appear more reasonable, be more engaging, and also more informative. At the same time, they must include more text, pictures, and videos in a single post. In this environment, the overtly racist label “black chicken” vanishes altogether, replaced by “Three Smiles Harris (哈三笑), which suggests Harris is frivolous and incompetent [CMP NOTE: This is related to the term “two laughs” (二哈), which in Chinese can mean “silly”.]
This phrase along with others like “Big Mouth Harris” (哈大嘴), and “Three Dusty Smiles” (風塵三笑) refer to Harris’s habit of laughing [CMP NOTE: The term “wind and dust (风尘 ) is a euphemism in Chinese for prostitution]. Videos of Harris beaming during a number of speeches and rallies have been posted to public channels alongside text in ways that are meant to demonstrate her frivolous nature, to suggest that she lacks the courage and capability a real politician should have, and to prove she is capable only of stupidly grinning. In some cases, these remarks grow even more offensive, suggesting that Harris’s smiles are a form of flirtation — that they suggest she has “slept her way to the top” (往上睡), as some write. [Source]
Disinformation is a large part of this online discourse. Despite attempts by certain groups such as Diyin, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, Chinese-language fact-checking related to the U.S. election is a difficult task given the lack of resources and the volume and speed of disinformation. Wenhao Ma reported on a recent investigation of a Chinese disinformation operation known as Spamouflage that has posted content over the past few weeks intended to depict candidates in a negative light and erode public trust in the election. Kenton Thibaut at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab situated this operation within five larger trends of PRC online influence operations in the lead-up to the U.S. election: focusing on down-ballot races instead of the presidential election, posing as real Americans and exploiting divisive social issues, studying and implementing influencer techniques to “go viral,” leveraging generative AI tools to tailor and spread content, and targeting multiple platforms with more limited presence on TikTok. (This also complements potential real-world influence operations by the PRC’s New York Consulate that were recently uncovered.) Ava Hu at The Guardian described how misinformation about the U.S. election has spread to different platforms and targeted Chinese-Americans:
In the year leading up to July, 228 major pieces of disinformation were targeted at Chinese-speaking users in a similar manner, garnering more than 4m views, a report from Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) found. And there has been a recent surge of anti-Harris misinformation.
The dissemination is called “platform jump”, when English misinformation is translated into Chinese and then shared on platforms with a higher concentration of Chinese-Americans, said Jinxia Niu, CAA’s program manager of digital engagement.
[…] On average, these posts have each received 26,320 views on X and 18,590 on WeChat, with total views often exceeding these numbers due to cross-platform circulation, according to the CAA. Common topics include Trump, conspiracy theories and immigration.
“The goal of racialized disinformation when it comes to elections is to suppress voter turnout in the fastest-growing electorate in the US or sway them to vote a certain way,” said Dorothy He, communications director at the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA). [Source]
Major media outlets and figures reflected on what the U.S. election will mean for China. Top editors at the South China Morning Post held a conversation on this subject and appeared to echo assessments from Caixin that “U.S.-China strategic rivalry will intensify regardless of who wins [the] White House.” Interviewed by the U.S.-China Perception Monitor, Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, agreed that “deeply rooted structural issues between the United States and China are unlikely to be resolved in the short term,” but added that “a Trump victory would bring more challenges” and destabilize the bilateral relationship while Harris would continue the status quo. In an article on the topic for China-U.S. Focus, Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China & Globalization, agreed that a hawkish Trump administration would likely limit Chinese exports to the U.S. and reduce people-to-people exchanges, while Harris would “avoid directly intensifying the China-U.S. conflict and maintain the current state of affairs.”
