You’ve likely heard the word ‘China’ come out of US President Donald Trump’s mouth on more than one occasion. On his go-to social media platform, Twitter, the president often brings up the country’s relationship with their biggest trading partner among other topics.
On November 15, a research project was published on WeChat, examining Trump’s ‘China’ mentions on his official Twitter account. The report, co-authored by two WeChat accounts, 北落的师门 and 韭菜说投资社区, focused on several areas in which Trump has not only stirred the political pot between the two powerhouses but also analyzed how his tweets have affected global markets.
The study categorized Trump’s tweets where he mentioned ‘China’ and/or ‘Chinese’ within the 280-character text box (originally 140 characters) into positive, neutral and negative posts. The findings were quite revealing, with the president’s first mention of the Asian country dating back to January 2011. Since then over 572 posts have contained one of those two key words, mentioning China once every five days over the last eight years on average.
According to the report, Trump has spoken favorably of China in only 7 percent of those tweets and taken a more negative tone 87 percent of the time. Six percent of the tally was seen as neutral. As for the rate in which he has tweeted about the country, statistics show the president's frequency has dwindled since arriving in office.
Image via Wechat
The study also looked at what specific China-related topics Trump enjoys bringing up on the micro-blogging site. The trade war was the largest individual trend, taking up 23 percent of the president’s China-related tweets. The North Korean nuclear negotiations were second with 9 percent and currency manipulation and US debt topics were both listed at 6 percent. The vast majority of his tweets covered a range of topics too diverse to categorize, which have been named ‘other.’
Whatever your opinion of the former Apprentice host is, it’s become apparent with this report that the president has slightly calmed down his harsh rhetoric towards China. Back in 2011, Trump was very vocal, posting, “China is neither an ally or a friend – they want to beat us and own our country,” while following up two months later writing, “Why do we continue to sit idly while China steals our national security and corporate secrets? China is an enemy, not a friend.”
In September 2018, Politico interviewed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey before he testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee regarding the social blogging site’s potential bias against conservatives. When asked whether President Trump could tweet something foul enough to be removed from Twitter, Dorsey responded, “I do have notifications turned on for a number of accounts, including his,” essentially saying no one is above the social media company’s policies.
When Trump has spoke fondly of China (44 times since his first mention almost eight years ago), the narrative has been focused on his relationship with President Xi Jinping who he has held in a high regard. “My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan,” Trump tweeted after a visit to Beijing in 2017.
Image via Wikimedia
With the G20 Leaders’ Summit set to take place on November 30 and December 1 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, both countries have confirmed the two leader will meet for dinner following the meetings in hopes of resolving the ongoing trade dispute.
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[Cover image via Wikimedia]
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