Discussions turn to virulent attacks on China's web scene
Many Chinese are watching the U.S. presidential election campaign almost as closely as American voters, with passionate debates flaring online as the two candidates' campaigns enter their final stages.
Hillary Clinton, who pollsters heavily favor to become the first female president in U.S. history, is rated considerably less popular than her rival Donald Trump among the majority of Chinese, according to an online poll conducted by the Global Times in March.
"I suspect many Chinese have a very unfavorable view of her," Xie Tao, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told CNN.
Words like "stubborn" and "impolite" were also used in Chinese media, a hostility which has not, however, dampened Chinese passions about the U.S. election.
Both ABC and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera sampled the political opinions of ordinary Chinese last week on the streets of Hangzhou, host city of this year's G20, and Beijing respectively, with most respondents favoring Trump.
Observers say their political opinions typically reflect class status and education background. "Chinese advocates of Clinton are likely to be conservative elites, while Trump's are populists like Trump himself," Liu Jianjun, a politics professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.
A commentary on the Financial Times' Chinese website by columnist Zhao Lingmin said that most Chinese advocates of Trump are well-educated and successful, whereas his major supporters at home are mostly from the middle to lower classes.
Liu, however, argued that Trump fans in China may fear "glass ceilings" that hinder their further political or economic achievements, the same kind of "rigged system" that Trump vows to target.
Discussions about the election among Chinese web users are heated, and often turn into virulent attacks. "Conversations often start with a rational discussion, followed by abuse and ending with nasty curses," Kevin Chen, a Chinese-American lawyer based in New York, said on his Sina Weibo account.
More than 448,000 comments have been made on the hashtag "the U.S. election" on Weibo. The first presidential debate on September 27 has received more than 3 million views on Tencent's video streaming website.
Some of Trump's speeches against U.S. "political correctness" have also influenced those in China who share his views on women, immigrants and Muslims, Shi Anbin, a professor at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.
Chinese netizens get especially heated when the two candidates talk about China, said Liu.
