Friday 10 November 2017

The Chinese love Trump, because.....

NYT yesterday.  The next day's cartoon has Trump saying to Xi:
"I knew walls worked. I don't see any Mexicans around here."
.... an old mate and colleague living in Beijing, says....
Yes, he sort of enjoys some popularity here. A multitude of reasons,including:

a) they hate blacks, and sense Donald is a racist which he is
b) they hate paying taxes and therefore reckon Donald is probably brilliantif he is setting out to bring tax rates down
c) they have the Great Wall here which is an icon of national pride andtherefore think it is probably a solid idea if Donald wants to build one onthe southern border
d) every day in the press the subtle messaging is that Donald sort of agreeswith all of the things which China considers are its core interests including being the dominant regional player
e) they admire so called self-made men who have lots of pretty women floating around
Forse, it is all pretty underwhelming stuff!
I can confirm that Chinese, in China, are racist.  At least that it's extremely common. I have very close people who are.  It's the sort of lazy, casual racism that used to be common in the west of the fifties, and which we wouldn't dare to express today.
Though I'm not really sure that Trump can be called a racist.  Not even for his trash talk about Mexicans.   It's at least an arguable proposition, not a flat out fact.