Summary
China condemned JD Vance on Tuesday for calling Chinese people “peasants” in a Fox News interview, where he said, “To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry labeled the remarks “ignorant and disrespectful.”
The backlash exploded on Chinese social media, garnering 140 million Weibo views.
Critics mocked Vance’s own “hillbilly” background and pointed to China’s advanced tech and infrastructure, highlighting rising tensions amid Trump’s trade war.
This word doesn’t mean anything. It was what they call “meme” today in the late XIX century, and then a political-religious term.
China has a bureaucratic, one can say imperial, system with laissez-faire economy, except for the moments when the empire has a project.
USA has an economy less free in fact due to oligopolies, monopolies and use of lobbying instead of competition, but a freer political system.