Hong Kong (CNN)For months, Republican frontrunner Donald
Trump has repeatedly targeted China on the campaign trail, pledging to put
tariffs on goods produced overseas and bring things like iPhone production back
to the United States.
Trump has even used a broken-English accent at a campaign
rally to mock the negotiating style of Chinese businessmen.
Beijing had previously downplayed
any impact Trump's rhetoric could have on U.S.-China relations, reducing it as a mere
"disturbance."
But this week, that all changed.
With Trump securing major victories
on the road to the White House, China issued a scathing criticism of the U.S.
election process and the candidate who has "opened a Pandora's box in U.S.
society."
In an editorial published this week, China's
state-owned Global Times newspaper condemns the billionaire candidate as
"big-mouthed" and "abusively forthright."
The Global Times claims Trump was
initially supposed to "act as a clown to attract more voters for
GOP." Instead, it goes on to imply that the Republican party lost control
of Trump -- who has now become the party's worst nightmare.
Mussolini,
Hitler, Trump?
The editorial also uses Trump's
political rise to highlight America's decline and the failings of democracy,
saying: "Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections, a heavy
lesson for Western democracy."
In its final paragraph, the Global
Times warns that the United States should watch itself from becoming a global
destructive force before pointing fingers at China for its "so-called
nationalism and tyranny."
While a Communist Party mouthpiece
uses the rise of Trump to condemn both him and Western-style democracy,
survivors of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have quoted Trump to condemn
his failure to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party.
During last week's CNN Republican
debate in Miami, Trump called pro-democracy demonstrations a "riot."
Trump also said he believed the
Chinese government had a "strong, powerful" response in ending the
student protests on June 4, 1989.
China reacts to the rise of Donald
Trump 03:36
Since those comments, Chinese
dissidents have lined up to condemn him for supporting the bloody crackdown and
to demand an apology.
In an article for TIME magazine,
1989 student protest leader Wang Dan denounces Trump for
using the same language as the Communist Party.
"I am disappointed by and angry
at Mr. Trump's words," he writes. "If a bloody repression can be
praised as a 'strong, powerful' action, what does this mean about American
values, especially when this blatant mischaracterization comes from a
presidential candidate?"
Freedom
fighter fears Trump
Fellow Tiananmen protest leader
Wu'er Kaixi turned to Facebook to describe Trump as "an enemy of the
values that America deeply defines itself by -- the same values that have long
provided hope to the victims of oppressive power worldwide."
He goes on to say, "Those of us
who have fought for freedom anywhere in the world worry that something is about
to change in America."
But perhaps the most graphic
criticism leveled at Trump is by the exiled political cartoonist Wang Liming,
better known as Rebel Pepper.
Forced to live in Japan for his own
safety, the cartoonist is well known for skewering China's elite.
In a cartoon released this week on
his Twitter feed addressed simply "to Trump," Rebel Pepper portrays
the American candidate as a tank commander brutally mowing down and crushing a
protester while declaring, "This is the best thing we imported from
China."
Poker
face?
Trump's controversial remarks on
China's past and present are no longer being ignored by China's dissidents or
political establishment.
And yet despite his relentless
attacks and steady political advance, Chinese premier Li Keqiang says relations
between the U.S. and China will continue to develop no matter who wins the
presidential race.
That's Beijing, putting on its best
poker face.
CNN
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