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.
They are victims, not “peasants” or “serfs”.
Serfs were victims, it’s roughly equivalent to slavery to be a serf
Right but it’s a nicer word to use imo.
Why are we softening the image of slavery? A spade is a fucking spade
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.