September 24, 2019 was just one of those usual days on which Donald Trump, the unconventional president of the United States, posted his governance messages to the world on Twitter. This day witnessed the latest efforts by the Democrats to impeach the Republican President. Following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement of the launch of formal impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, accusing the president of “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections”, news soon spread over the social networks of China, a country which sits across the Pacific Ocean from US and is currently “stuck” in the mire of trade war launched by President Trump.
On Weibo, one of the most popular social networks of China, the Chinese youngsters again commented the Trump impeachment news with a sense of humor and entertainment. “Oops… Comrade Chuan Jianguo is exposed.” “Please protect our comrade Chuan Jianguo.” “Protect yourself, comrade Chuan Jianguo. Don’t get yourself exposed. The organization is waiting for the good news from you…” All those comments, which were intended for fun and ridicule, used the word “Chuan Jianguo”, which was long before created as a nick name of President Trump. “Chuan” is the first character in “Chuan Pu”, a commonly used Chinese transliteration of the US President’s surname “Trump”; and “Jianguo”, which means “founding of the state”, is a widely used given name of Chinese people, especially those who were born around the time when the People’s Republic of China was founded. So this nick name, “Chuan Jianguo”, reflects the Chinese youngsters’ “expectation”, in a humorous way, that Trump will “devote” himself to the great cause of China.
Why is Trump nicknamed “Chuan Jianguo” by Chinese youngsters on social networks?
Early in 2016, when Trump threw himself in the fierce battles of his campaign to seek the US presidency, Chinese youngsters had laid their eyes on the unusual characters of the presidential candidate. Those young Chinese netizens, many of whom were the so-called white collars, were active on the well-developed social networks every day, following up on the progress of Trump’s campaign, and forwarding or commenting Trump-related microblogs. This was exactly how they followed and showed support for their idols in entertainment or sports. At that time, when Trump tried to glorify himself as the one to break with convention, he indeed became a political “idol” to some Chinese youngsters.
But after Trump took office, the Chinese youngsters soon realized that the new US President was not the entertainment or sports star who they imagined would continuously produce brilliant performances to his fans, but was the President and Commander-in-Chief of a country which considered China as its arch rival in world economy and even politics. They were first often astounded, and then became used to the US President’s blunt attacking words against China posted on Twitter and his arrogant decisions to withdraw US from long established international organizations. At that time, they took part in discussions with relish on the hot topics continuously created by Trump, while poking fun at the US President on social networks. That was when the nickname of “Chuan Jianguo” became popular on China’s social networks, although no one knows who first came up with the name. On Trump’s unconventional “Twitter governance” and “leaving group” initiative, the Chinese youngsters joked that Trump was playing with fire, making enemies on Twitter and drawing the United States away from its allies and also other countries, and thus that the US President seemed to be creating opportunities for China to further build its world reputation and enhance its international roles by improved cooperation and communications with other countries.
As Trump’s anti-China posts on Twitter increased, and following US government’s sanctions first on ZTE, and then on Huawei, two of the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers of China, the Chinese youngsters soon discovered that suppressing China’s economic development became a significant part of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign. That was when patriotism of Chinese youngsters began to be inspired by Trump. When Huawei was under its most serious crisis, symbolled by Canadian authorities’ arrest of Cathy Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of Huawei’s founder, and then US government’s addition of Huawei to the Entity List, many Chinese youngsters launched “buy Huawei products” movement on social networks. Again, some Chinese youngsters made jokes that “Chuan Jianguo” was indeed a comrade, as he single-handedly brought the general public of China into unity and boosted the patriotism of the young Chinese to a brand new level.
Following the Huawei ban from US government, the Chinese youngsters started to rethink the undercurrents of the US-China trade war. They read news releases on both countries’ escalation of tariffs on imports from the other and tracked progress of trade talks between the two countries. They experienced ups and downs in China’s stock market triggered by Trump’s capricious playing fast and loose with China on Twitter. Despite realizing the actual existence of trade war in a more profound sense, the Chinese youngsters do not believe much adverse impact has been vested on China’s society or economy, nor do they feel any braking or slowing down of China’s economic growth. Life and work just continues, as was the same during those periods of economic instability resulted from global financial crisis or periodical economic fluctuations. In fact, this time, they have the confidence that China will survive the trade war and even become more thriving thereafter, as they have seen the determination of China’s policymakers to increase input into the research and development of China’s high-end industries and maintain the welfare of Chinese citizens, and the passion and perseverance of those grown companies and also start-ups to build up China’s independent innovation abilities. Therefore, Chinese youngsters feel that Trump, with his trade war, has given China a sense of crisis to face up to itself and a great boost to concentrate on the development of its innovative economy.
Indeed, the mass of Chinese youngsters, who grew up during those miracle ages of China’s fast development, believe that today’s China is no longer the one they read about in their school history textbooks, and that the US is also not the super power when they first heard of its name in their childhood. But how does Trump see China and his own country today? Undoubtedly, America is still the most powerful country in the word, in terms of its economy and military force, among others. However, with continuously enhanced interactions between China and other countries, the world has also heard louder voices from and witnessed improved roles played by China on international affairs. Surely, China is not that country which dared not speak out its anger when its embassy in former Yugoslavia was bombed by US missiles twenty years ago, and it has spoken for itself by its unyielding stance in the trade war, as evidenced by those responsive counter-measures on tariffs against the US.
When comrade “Chuan Jianguo” gets busy dealing with his impeachment crisis, on which the Chinese youngsters have “hoped” for his success, he may as well take some time to rethink the current roles of both the US and China in today’s world and reconsider the future of his trade war.