- Chinese social media is not convinced that Vice President Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump in November.
- The failed assassination attempt on Trump has convinced Weibo that his victory is a foregone conclusion.
- Harris is relatively unknown in China, with officials like Antony Blinken having a stronger presence there.
Joe Biden’s canceled presidential candidacy has gone viral in China, where the online consensus leans toward former President Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.
Initial reaction from China pundits has been to dismiss Vice President Kamala Harris — whom Biden has endorsed as the presumptive heir to the Democratic nomination — as having a lower chance of winning the White House than her former running mate.
Trump, now the official Republican nominee, took a similar tack, saying Sunday that Harris would be “easier to beat than Joe Biden.”
China’s heavily moderated social media is not a true indicator of its foreign policy, but such discussions provide a glimpse into what rhetoric Chinese authorities allow to persist and thrive.
“Trump has basically secured the presidency, there is no need for anyone else to continue his actions. This is awkward and not even entertaining,” wrote a blogger based in Gansu.
“The Democrat Party’s chaotic replacement of generals is like Wu Dalang’s medicine,” wrote another blogger, referring to a famous Chinese story about a man who survived a poisoning but was still strangled to death by his wife. “You will die whether you drink it or not.”
On Weibo, China’s version of X, commenters on state media reports about Biden’s endorsement of Harris kept asking the same question: “Who is she?”
Harris, despite meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the APEC forum in Bangkok, has a much smaller presence on Chinese social media than Biden or his secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
She has been the subject of two viral topics on Weibo. The first garnered 190 million views in 2021, when she spoke of a possible war “over water.” The second garnered 140 million views in 2020, when her husband, Doug Emhoff, resigned from his law firm to support Harris’ vice presidential candidacy.
Meanwhile, Blinken — the Biden administration’s point man on China — has been at the center of more than a dozen viral topics since 2021, some of which have racked up nearly 800 million views, according to data seen by Business Insider.
As for Trump, the former president is a frequent subject of memes in China, which mock him as a Beijing secret agent.
However, the recent failed assassination attempt on him—and widely circulated photos of the attempted assassination—have convinced the Weibo masses that he is running too strong a campaign to lose in November.
Trump has intensified his attacks on Harris since rumors emerged that Biden might drop out, using the nickname “Laffin’ Kamala” in an attempt to belittle her laughing ways as detrimental to his leadership.
A montage of Harris laughing at the camera also emerged in China, though most were less condescending. Some praised her for having an “infectious laugh and smile.”
Coincidentally, Harris’s name, translated into Mandarin, begins with the same character as the word for “laugh.”
The Democratic Party’s deadline to select its nominee was during its national convention on August 19-22, and Harris quickly secured the major support she needed to win the position.
Despite Trump and China’s predictions, FiveThirtyEight’s latest round of polling shows that Harris’ performance with voters is only marginally different from Biden’s by a percentage point or two — usually at most. At times, she’s better than the president.
Most July polls put one of the Democratic leaders behind Trump, though usually by a narrow margin of one to five percentage points.
The press team for the Biden-Harris ticket did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of regular business hours by Business Insider.
