May 2016:
In many respects, ordinary people in China, or the
“old hundred names,” as they are called—a colloquial catchall for those
commoners who didn’t make it into the history books—are not unlike the
largest segment of Trump supporters: of limited education, dispossessed,
and frequently overlooked because of their distance from power.
Abstract principles, which Hillary Clinton has been known to proclaim in
China—of human rights and women’s rights—seem less relevant than the
practical economic challenges facing the average citizen. “Trump is an
exceedingly smart man who has had remarkable success in making hotels
and towers and TV shows,” a Chinese blogger posted on a Web forum
devoted to American politics. When someone else asked about Trump’s
trade policies, many of which are hostile to China, the same blogger
responded dismissively that Trump is “a businessman first and foremost”
and “will do what is in both countries’ economic interest”—giving voice
to the sentiment, perennially popular in China, that pragmatism
inevitably reigns in the end…cont’d