by WorldTribune Staff, November 9, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump has a “big ego” but he is “more honest” than former President Barack Obama, Beijing residents told the independently run South China Morning Post in a Nov. 8 feature.
“As a 71-year-old man, he is spirited and energetic,” 64-year-old Li Dongsheng, a retired teacher at a military academy, told the newspaper. “He pushes beyond his own boundaries and he takes up new challenges. I admire him for that. He has an outgoing personality and hates losing … I think his mental age is quite young.”
Fei Danyang, a 42-year-old financial analyst, said Trump is “an interesting person, more honest than Obama. He is no politician and has a big ego … so his honesty is, in a disrespectful way, a bit self-righteous and ignorant of other people’s feelings.”
Fei added that watching tensions between Democrats and the Trump administration was fun, saying: “It’s like we [in China] are just like watching a fire from across a river. The chaos is theirs. The more dramatic it gets, the more fun it is to watch.”
While independent, media analysts say the South China Morning Post often echoes the Chinese government-run media.
Related: Report: U.S. intelligence can’t match China’s on summit prep, Nov. 8, 2017
Chinese citizens are generally expected to toe the official Chinese Communist Party line. The Xi Jinping regime has undertaken increased efforts to contain free speech on the Internet by introducing cyber-security laws designed to crack down on any political dissent taking place online.
Chinese propaganda outlets such as the People’s Daily and Global Times have written positive editorials about Trump’s first visit to China, which began on Nov. 8.
“In realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and protecting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, China and the United States have common interests,” an editorial in People’s Daily stated.
“The two sides should respect one another’s interests, maintain close communication and consultation, and make unremitting efforts to promote a thorough resolution of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.”
The Chinese government uses its state media to often claim that the West is in a state of “chaos,” as opposed to the “stability” of communist China.
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