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.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    One of the most frustrating things about the current US administration, is I keep having to side with China. wtf is going on when we can no longer even get together to hate on an external trading partner? When the enemies are not at the gate but in the keep? When I have to agree with actions to punish my own country as well earned and expected?

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      Maybe the enemies aren’t the ones we’ve been made to believe. Our homegrown capitalists export jobs to the “peasants” then they turn around and say to the jobless - look, the peasants took your job!

      • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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        5 days ago

        The enemies have never been the Chinese proletariat who toil and slave for scraps to feed the demands of a capitalist, consumerist society and always the greedy, totalitarian faux-socialists with a love for concentration camps that form the ruling party.

        • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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          4 days ago

          totalitarian faux-socialists with a love for concentration camps that form the ruling party

          Could you please tell me what’s the incarceration rate in China and compare it with the US?

          • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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            4 days ago

            First: No I cannot, the people of China do not enjoy freedom of press or freedom of expression, so finding out the actual statistics can be very difficult.

            Second: What is your point? Two governments can be bad simultaneously, and even more than just two. Just because I oppose Israel’s genocide doesn’t mean I suddenly support Iran’s totalitarian leadership.

            • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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              4 days ago

              finding out the actual statistics can be very difficult

              Nah, you’re just a racist US-propagandized individual who refuses to believe statistics from “le evil country” because they don’t suit your ideology. Trials in China are as public as in the rest of the world, and incarceration rates are easy to calculate, and they match the government data because China doesn’t need to lie about it becaude it’s not a police state in the way USians believe it to be. I can attest to that as someone who visited China freely and without visa, and who has had the pleasure of having several Chinese coworkers.

              Second: What is your point?

              My point is that China’s incarceration rate is 5 times lower that of the USA, which makes it kinda obvious that there’s no “tyrant police state jailing everyone who disagrees”.

              • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com
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                4 days ago

                I’ve been looking for Chinese prison-crime-etc. data. Do you have a link?

                It being in Mandarin isn’t a problem.

                  • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com
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                    4 days ago

                    That’s the UN data for Hong Kong, but it was easy enough to find the page for the PRC, excluding Hong Kong and Macao. The figures still line up well enough (noting, as the other page does that it exclude statistics about people interred in the “vocational training schools”), although the UN doesn’t have figures post 2016.

                    UN page doesn’t seem to have execution rates either, which would also impact incarceration rates.

                    Not to say that the US isn’t atrocious and also terrible on all those metrics, and plumbing new lows with each successive presidency. I was just kinda hoping for some more official PRC reported figures.

              • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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                4 days ago

                You’re either an apologist for totalitarian dictatorships who falls for propaganda as easily as MAGA cultists or you’re just straight-up trolling. The racism accusation was really the cherry on top.

                I have never even visited the US, nor do I have any intention to.

                • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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                  4 days ago

                  You don’t need to live in the US to fall to US State Department propaganda, I’m west-European myself and I’m surrounded by people with the same brainworms as you do. But if you insist I’ll give you two sources that give similar numbers (i.e. 5 times smaller imprisonment rate than in the USA): source 1(London-based institute) source 2(UN data). Are those also totalitarian sources for this faulty information that we can’t believe because the evil politicians from the evil country are plotting to destroy the west?

            • Fluke@lemm.ee
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              4 days ago

              That’s not how it works around here. No shades of gray I’m afraid, simple black and white only. (/s)

              • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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                4 days ago

                If it’s one thing I’ve learned in my years it’s the the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Just look at global warming.

        • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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          4 days ago

          Same as it ever was, governments sucking ass while the people are just… People… Even EU governments suck ass, just maybe ever so slightly less in recent history and even that I’m not sure of (not counting the current slide to the far right obviously).

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          As someone who is trying to live in a democracy it’s still insane to accept a dictatorship IMO

          The kings and dictators are gonna be a fundamental wedge between east/west for a long time.

      • j0ester@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I do feel like every 4 years… there’s a new enemy in the world. Kim > Putin > Bibi =/= Donald > who’s next?

    • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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      4 days ago

      The enemy was never China. The current US administration is worse than the previous one, but it was never China imprisoning black people en-masse, keeping your healthcare unaffordable and your life expectancy below that of Cuba, keeping your tuition prices out of reach for the majority, not guaranteeing a retirement pension, and having the largest incarceration rate on Earth. It just took orange man for you to realize. Hopefully you won’t turn back to anti-chinese sentiment and pro-US-imperialism when the cheeto is gone.

      • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        Hopefully you won’t turn back to anti-chinese sentiment and pro-US-imperialism when the cheeto is gone.

        The guy literally said that the most frustrating thing is that he can’t be anti-chinese anymore.

      • Fluke@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        Ehhhhhhh…

        I don’t disagree that the “western hemisphere” is a corrupt, increasingly fascist, capitalist hellhole…

        China aren’t known for their stellar human rights record either. Uyghurs, Tibetans, anyone that jokes about Winnie the Pooh’s lookalike, etc.

        Let’s not pretend either side is righteous here, every single one of us is getting fucked, it’s just a matter of degree and direction.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          4 days ago

          Uyghurs, Tibetans, anyone that jokes about Winnie the Pooh’s lookalike, etc.

          If you think the nazis Americans are bad, wait until you hear what they have to say about the soviets chinese!

    • dick_fineman@discuss.online
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      5 days ago

      Anyone else becoming consciously aware of things they just can’t say because China is now going to be the next superpower?

      …at least their list of banned statements are coherent and predictable…I guess. With the Trump admin, you could say “I like Gouda cheese” and a few years later find yourself in El Salvador because Trump, or some other moron, got upset that The Netherlands wouldn’t willingly be annexed.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        That’s what I’m talking about the oppressive dictatorship with poor human rights is the voice of reason, if sanity, the “good one”? How did that happen?

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      You shouldn’t be siding with any country. All states are evil. The future of humanity is a stateless, classless, egalitarian society with worldwide co-operation, and the existence of states are a threat to world peace.

    • j0ester@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      This was also not on my bingo card as well. It’s a damn weird timeline we’re living in.