China Reacts to Trump's Election

Featuring commentary from leading pro- and anti-Trump IR experts: Yan Xuetong, Jia Qingguo, Wu Xinbo, Jin Canrong, Huang Jing and Hu Wei.

The theme of China’s official response is cooperation. As the results trickled in on Thursday morning, the People’s Daily homepage had an article about an event for the “Flying Tigers” — American personnel who served in China during the Second World War. The political messaging, reporting on an event that happened two months ago, was not subtle: “The United States and China could cooperate in the past, and they can still cooperate today”. Since then, Xi Jinping has called Trump to congratulate him on winning. A commentary in Xinhua described “whether China and the United States can find the right way to get along” as “the question of the century”.

But what did people in China really make of Trump’s victory? Social media has thankfully offered no shortage of reactions. The hashtag “Trump officially declares victory” (特朗普正式宣布获胜) received over 1.2 billion views on Weibo. Some netizens saw the funny side, joking about his age and referring to him by the nickname Comrade Build-the-Country (…