A senior Chinese official, responding to the tariff war that President Trump launched against the Communist Chinese, mocked Americans as “peasants” who would “wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.”
Xia Baolong, who oversees Hong Kong and Macao, said on Tuesday that Trump’s 145% tariff on goods from China was “brutally unreasonable.”
“The U.S. isn’t after our tariffs but our very survival,” Xia said on television. “The U.S. has repeatedly contained and suppressed Hong Kong … and this will eventually backfire on itself. Let those peasants in the United States wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.”
“The Chinese people do not cause trouble, nor are they afraid of trouble. Pressure, threats, and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China,” he continued.
Baolong’s verbiage picked up on rhetoric used by Vice President J.D. Vance, who told Fox News earlier this month, “What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us. To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity; it’s not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.”
Chinese foreign ministry Lin Jian spokesperson responded, “It’s both astonishing and lamentable to hear this vice-president make such ignorant and disrespectful remarks.”
Baolong’s strident rhetoric is not unusual for Chinese leaders; in November 2023 Chinese president Xi Jinping warned then-President Joe Biden that China unifying with Taiwan was “unstoppable,” declaring, “The U.S. side should take real actions to honor its commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence,’ stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification. China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable.”
In 2019, Communist China threatened to retaliate against the United States for limiting the federal dollars spent on Chinese products. The official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Daily, intimated that China would stop exporting “rare earth” minerals to the United States. The People’s Daily wrote, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” That phrase has been historically used by the Chinese Communist party to threaten armed warfare.
