- The attempted assassination of President Trump sent shock waves through China and went viral on social media.
- But it also reinforces popular views in China about the United States, such as the idea that the U.S. is “Gotham City.”
- Saturday's attack reignited the usual criticism of gun violence and political infighting.
The gunman's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has once again put the United States in the spotlight in China.
The shooting at Trump's Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, which left one spectator dead and the former president bloodied from his ear, has dominated discussion on Weibo, China's version of X.
The viral stories about the shooting itself, President Trump's reaction, and the Republican candidate's fist-pumping photo were viewed a combined total of more than 1.7 billion times on Weibo in one day, according to data reviewed by Business Insider.
Reactions have mirrored the mood on international social media platforms such as X, with users expressing shock and rushing to uncover details of the attack.
But on the Chinese internet, the shooting's outsized impact was to confirm a widely held prejudice that the U.S. political system means it is poorly run and prone to internal conflict.
A tale of gun violence and mayhem
Access to guns has always been a hot topic when China criticizes the United States, but it was at the center of the debate again on Sunday. The FBI said the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, used a legally purchased 5.56mm AR-style rifle to attack Trump.
“Keep America free, gunfights every day,” wrote one user, which was the most-liked comment on state media coverage of the shootout.
“But why not ban guns?” another wrote.
“Americans have heard so many gunshots that they are immune to them,” one person wrote when a blogger discussed the crowd's reaction to the shooting.
It's a narrative that has been promoted in China for years: the idea that the United States is a perpetually chaotic and dangerous place to live, with protests, urban crime rates and gun violence, with some people routinely referring to the US as one giant “Gotham City.”
Meanwhile, Beijing has built an image of China as a country with low crime rates and little gun violence.
“This reinforces a broader and persistent argument that China is a much more 'safe' and orderly country than the US,” Dylan Lo, assistant professor of political and social science at the National University of Singapore, told BI.
“It is true that such gun-related public violence is almost unheard of in China,” Lo added.
Democracy is seen as too messy
The sentiment was echoed in the Global Times, a tabloid newspaper often seen as a mouthpiece for the administration, with one Chinese professor telling the paper that the attacks on Trump showed “the ongoing epidemic of gun violence in the United States.”
“This shows that political violence has been a persistent element in American history,” Diao Daming, a professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the media.
This is one of China's frequent criticisms of the United States and liberal democracy in general. Chinese people often say the U.S.'s two-party electoral system is messy, hinders real progress and breeds unnecessary infighting.
“The only way Biden can defeat Trump is to assassinate him, and the only way we can defeat the US is to hope the US starts a civil war,” one blogger wrote on Sunday.
“The US elections are more entertaining than all the entertainment variety shows and cinematic art in the world,” another user wrote.
In China's one-party system, the top leader is usually replaced every 10 years, but Xi Jinping has been in power for 12 years and has abolished term limits for the country's top officials.
“Comrade Nation Builders”
Memes have also emerged claiming that President Trump survived, with users cheering that a “fellow nation builder” had been taken away with only blood coming out of his ears.
It's a sarcastic nickname for the former president that has surged in popularity following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and is used to mock Trump as a man secretly working for China to undermine the United States.
“This photo of Trump is amazing, the photographer should get a bonus! Comrade nation builder has sacrificed so much,” one beauty blogger wrote.
Some people have Photoshopped a Chinese flag behind President Trump as he raises his fist in defiance.
“Despite the bullets hitting my ears, I can still hear the Party!” one blogger joked in the caption.
China's central government has said little publicly about the attack, although President Xi Jinping joined other world leaders in expressing sympathy for Trump.
Indeed, the attack on Trump has been widely criticized in the US as a Secret Service failure, with experts questioning how a gunman was able to get to a vantage point so close to the former president's compound with a weapon.
Top leaders from both parties also called for calm and to refrain from political rhetoric.
“Clearly, our society cannot survive like this,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday.
