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.

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Rising tensions with China? I was told that’s what the Democrats were going to do if they won. 🤷‍♂️

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    6 days ago

    “China lashes out”

    Did they also “slam” home the fact that this is quite literally a world leader directly insulting the people of their closest rival? The bad news writing mixing with clown world politics is why all this seems so unreal to people, we are talking about a collapse of global world order but this reads like a TMZ piece.

  • Viskio_Neta_Kafo@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Wonder how my friend who’s a Chinese immigrant who supports Trump and wanted to move to Singapore if Kamala won, feels about this.

  • dick_fineman@discuss.online
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    7 days ago

    …I hate laughing at the downfall of my own country, but we definitely had it coming. I guess Chinese is the new lingua franca. Anyway, can someone help me understand why “Ma” in Mandarin means both weed and mom? How do I buy weed in Beijing?

    • Tkpro@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Mandarin has 4 (technically 5) tones so “ma” could be any one of those 4 different pronunciations. Furthermore, there are many completely different words that have the same tone/pronunciation. You just learn through context (same way as you do with English homophones)

      Mom in mandarin is 媽 (mā) whereas weed is 麻 (má). Colloquially you can also say 大麻 (dàmá) for weed.

      • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Also, even before you go into the nitty gritty, there are homonyms in English too, so I don’t get why OP needs an explanation.

        • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          take this as you will, it is copy pasted from a site. most other sources i saw up to reading this said the same shit, so it is probably fairly accurate

          The Punishment for Marijuana in China

          Possession & Use: Individuals caught with marijuana or using marijuana will face administrative detention between 10 to 15 days, as well as fines of up to 2,000 yuan ($280 USD).
          
          Trafficking and Distribution: Selling or distributing marijuana is a crime. Punishment for those found guilty of handling over 50 grams includes a minimum three-year prison sentence, with life incarceration or death being possible penalties for larger weights (or in special cases).
          
          Marijuana Cultivation: Growing cannabis is another criminal offense, no matter how many plants. People arrested for growing marijuana could spend five years in jail and pay a hefty fine. For larger amounts, the punishment is even steeper.
          
      • Sonor@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        you also use ma at the end of the sentences to form a question, to make it more confusing

      • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        Not to mention Chinese is quite the endeavor to learn, Esperanto would make way more sense.

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    At some point, The Onion is going to have to close up shop. Because the absurdity of reality goes way beyond any satire they could dream up.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        I remember that late night talk shows basically said that they don’t have to write comedy during Trump’s first term, because everything he was doing was comedy. This second term is far darker, but the lunacy of what’s happening on a daily basis makes all comedy and satire writers obsolete!

        Even actual news reporting on serious things like “explaining Trump’s tariffs”, end up being almost unbelievable, like you have to question whether what you’re listening to actually happened or not. Take a few minutes to learn about how Trump’s team came up with the tariff numbers, and you’ll think that you’re watching a Pixar movie.

  • Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    I knew a girl from China and this is a huge insult to them. Being seen or labeled as rural is very embarrassing in their culture. She was ashamed because she grew up on her uncle’s pig farm.

    • Lit@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Farmers should be respected like other workers, they are feeding the world.

      • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        Many jobs are equally essential, I don’t get why people lose their asses over farmers specifically. It’s not like they feed the people out of charity, it’s their job to do so, and they get paid to do it.

          • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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            6 days ago

            I respect farmers as long as they’re not abusing migrant labour at illegal wages… So, I barely respect farmers.

          • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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            6 days ago

            Well, in as much as they’re workers, yeah. When instead they’re landowners who illegally employ immigrants in order to pay them misery wages under the counter, fuck them. Farmers can be extremely reactionary and exploitative too, in a way that say, a supermarket cashier, simply can’t be.

            • Lit@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              you are right but if you compare landowner you should compare to other owner like supermarket owner, store owner, there are also store owner who hire illegals worker/casher paying them miserable cash wages.

              • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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                6 days ago

                Exactly my point: many farmers aren’t working class, they’re petit-bourgeois, which explains why there are so many reactionary tendencies among them. The farmers who are working class deserve praise, the ones who are landowners don’t.

    • Wanpieserino@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      That’s just because all the development happened in cities. It’s easier to educate people when they live in a place with more funding.

      In 2020 or so the income inequality in china was equal to that of USA. Meaning that rural places didn’t have sufficient funding.

      But now the gini is down to 0,36. Meaning that there’s more widespread funding.

      China seems to be willing. While the inequality in USA is by design to attract capital

    • turnip@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      Meanwhile they all can be gulag’d at any time by their cruel dictator. They are all serfs in that aspect.

      • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        Man yeah, a country where you can be sent to an extra territorial jail with no due process and absolutely no recourse because the Man said so.
        That sounds scary!

      • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        What’s the incarceration rate in China? You guys are so fucking racist by swallowing the Anti-Chinese propaganda I swear to god.

        • turnip@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          What’s the youth unemployment?

          The answer is it doesn’t matter, its a dictatorship that curates the official truth.

          • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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            5 days ago

            Have you not looked at western media during the GENOCIDE in Gaza? All of them collectively talking about “war in Israel and Palestine”, playing both sides, and curating the truth. For fuck’s sake, the average Republican in the USA lives in a completely different world of covid denialism, and thinks Elon performed an accidental Roman salute.

            • turnip@sh.itjust.works
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              3 days ago

              Does Bernie Sanders get arrested and put in a reeducation camp for speaking out against it, as he would in China?

              • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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                8 hours ago

                You surely heard about this

                Or about this

                Those are just two examples from the past month. Edward Snowden? Julian Assange? Do those names ring a bell?

                Also, Bernie is openly not against the genocide in Gaza. He openly talks of “Israel’s right to defend itself” and consistently talks of the “war” (not the GENOCIDE) using bothsideism

                • turnip@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 hours ago

                  We’ll touche, definitely weird to be talking about sending prisoners to El Salvador.

                  Though these terrorist laws were always going to be abused.

              • misteloct@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                Why do you think the article is upset at Vance? He should have said “We borrow money from them to buy the things they manufacture.” Mentioning ethnicity or the word peasant is clearly racist. Even if he wanted to drive it home, he could have said “We borrow money from these victims of slavery…” but it wouldn’t have made any sense of course that way. It was racist.

  • Basic Glitch@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Don’t take it personally, China. He feels the same way about the majority of Americans including his own family. He’s got a chip on his shoulder bc he grew up among the peasant class, made it to the Ivy Leagues and has desperately been trying to claw his way into a social level he’ll never be accepted to bc he wasn’t born into it.

    From his POV you’re either a peasant, or you’re an elitist. Unless you’re part of the 1% of billionaires and generational wealth. Somehow that makes you an average Joe, and that’s why you benefit the most from Vance’s policies and “beliefs” (whatever he may need them to be in the moment).

    Vance is not dumb, but he certainly acts like a useful idiot.

    • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      He can get there despite being dumb. Plenty of really dumb people end up on top. Not because of their intelligence but because of their complete lack of regard for others.

    • Wanpieserino@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      How is he not dumb? I’ve seen his texts in private chats. That’s not meant for the public. And god damn does he seem dumb

    • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      The stereotype at that. A dumb hick from Appalachia. Which isn’t really fare to the people from there anymore. I’ve met serveral people from there who were fair minded and of reasonable intelligence. Just not that waste of breath.

  • fossilesque@mander.xyz
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    7 days ago

    These people are so stupid, I cannot. I wish I was as blitzed as they are so I didn’t have to pay attention either.

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 days ago

      No. Considering present-day America and China, one of those nations is far more reliable and far more stable.

      • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        ML, grad and hexbear are patiently waiting for your apologies. Sad that the line the US had to cross wasn’t imperialism and genocide, but losing decorum and imposing tariffs on treats…

        • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          I’m an anarchist. I have always been at odds with the American state. I have been arguing against genocide apologists since the Palestinian genocide began. China is not a perfect state. They are authoritarian. They are at odds with me ideologically, and I have many criticisms of their past and present state. It’s possible to both acknowledge the extent of anti-china propaganda output by the American state, and also that China is a country that has its own history past and present of human rights abuses and workers rights abuses.

          • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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            6 days ago

            Sure, you just mentioned “present-day”, and I thought maybe you referred that things have changed somehow. The US has always been imperialist and genocidal in nature, that’s why I got triggered by the “present-day” part of your initial comment and to what I was responding.

            • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              6 days ago

              I had a longer comment typed up initially but opted for something shorter since it was likely falling on deaf ears anyway. Yes, America was founded by genocidal colonialists. Genocide and Western imperialism are foundational American institutions.