Trump, the nation builder

 At first, Trump was seen less as a politician than as a reality  television character who had somehow wandered into the  White House. Chinese netizens mocked his hair, marvelled at his  rhetorical excesses and, for a time, even admired his supposed  business success. Over the years, however, amusement has faded  and hostility has grown. 

This shift reflects not only changing Chinese perceptions of  America, but also a deeper transformation in how China sees  itself and its place in the world. Most revealing was the nickname  Chinese netizens gave Trump: ‘Chuan Jianguo’ (川建国), which  roughly translates as ‘Trump the nation builder’. 

Chinese social media users helped popularise the nickname “Chuan Jianguo” — reflecting the belief that Donald Trump’s policies unintentionally strengthened China. Photo: Freepik

Jianguo is an immensely popular Chinese name, borne by nearly  a million people. The joke was that Trump was actually helping  to make China stronger. By launching trade wars and trying to  cut China off from advanced technologies, he unintentionally  accelerated Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance and  fuelled nationalist sentiment. More importantly, many Chinese  believe his erratic behaviour and foreign policy blunders  weakened the United States and gave China greater diplomatic  room to manoeuvre. 

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President  Xi Jinping during a high-profile meeting in Beijing —  a relationship that evolved from cautious engagement into open strategic rivalry. 

When Donald Trump first entered office in 2017, his victory was  greeted with relief in China. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who was  more vocal on human rights issues, Trump appeared  transactional rather than ideological. After decades of hearing  American politicians lecture China on rights issues, some  Chinese felt Trump might actually be easier to deal with. I  remember being surprised to hear positive comments about him  from ordinary Chinese people. Some admired his bluntness and  unpredictability. Others simply enjoyed the spectacle. 

Trump’s 2017 state visit to Beijing now feels like a moment from  another era. China welcomed him with extraordinary pomp:  military honours, a lavish banquet in the Forbidden City and  carefully choreographed displays of respect. At the time, Beijing  still approached Washington with a mixture of caution and  admiration. 

Yet even during that visit, subtle shifts were already visible.  Trump openly praised the Chinese leader Xi Jinping while  simultaneously embracing ‘America First’ nationalism and  

increasingly confrontational rhetoric on trade. What followed  was not engagement but escalating rivalry. 

As Trump launched tariffs, sanctions and attacks on Chinese  companies, Chinese attitudes hardened. The campaign against  Huawei in particular struck a nerve, widely seen as an attempt to  suppress China’s technological rise. Trump was transformed in  the Chinese imagination from entertainer into adversary. 

Restrictions on companies like Huawei intensified China’s push for technological self-reliance and domestic innovation. Photo: DIGITIMES 

Ironically, however, Trump may have strengthened the very  country he sought to contain. During the Mao era, China had  pursued self-reliance out of ideological necessity. Under Trump,  technological self-reliance returned as a strategic imperative.  Beijing doubled down on domestic innovation, semiconductors  and supply-chain resilience.

The transformation was psychological as much as  economic. 

I belong to a generation that grew up when America possessed  an almost mythical aura. In the China of my youth, the United  States symbolised modernity, prosperity and freedom. I  fantasised about seeing the country with my own eyes, perhaps  even living there one day. Even its Chinese name,  Meiguo—literally ‘beautiful country’—carried a certain  romance. Like many Chinese of my generation, I learned English  partly out of fascination with the West. 

Today, that aura has faded dramatically. Many Chinese no longer  look at the United States with awe, but with the cooler gaze  reserved for an equal, a rival or even a wounded giant. 

Beijing’s skyline stands as a marker of China’s  expanding economic confidence amid shifting global power perceptions. Photo: Morio/CC BY-SA 4.0 

Trump did not create this shift alone, of course. China’s own rise  played the decisive role. Yet Trump accelerated the process by  exposing American divisions and volatility to the world. The  world’s most powerful nation no longer appeared calm, rational  and invincible. Instead, it looked polarised, fragmented and  increasingly uncertain of itself. 

Chinese state propaganda has also helped shape this changing perception. Social media is frequently flooded with disturbing  images of homelessness, drug abuse, gun violence and political chaos in the United States. These clips are often presented as  evidence of a civilisation in decline. 

For decades, many Chinese viewed America with a mixture of  admiration and inferiority. That emotional imbalance has largely  disappeared. Younger Chinese are now more likely to see the  United States simply as another great power: formidable,  certainly, but flawed, divided and no longer beyond comparison.

This psychological shift is now shaping China’s negotiations  with the United States. Beijing today speaks with noticeably  greater confidence than it did a decade ago. Chinese officials no  longer present the country as a cautious developing nation  seeking acceptance into a Western-led order. Instead, China  increasingly behaves like a power that believes history is moving  in its favour. 

Everyday life on the streets of New York City, a city often used to represent both the strengths and social  complexities of the United States. Photo: Andy C/CC BY-SA 3.0 

That confidence was especially visible during Trump’s May visit,  when Xi Jinping warned that mishandling the Taiwan issue  could lead to conflict. Such language reflects not only strategic  calculation, but also a growing belief within China that the  balance of power is shifting. Today, although few in China  actively desire conflict, there is a stronger sense that China can  endure pressure and that America itself appears weakened by  internal division. 

A famous Chinese idiom helps explain this evolving mood: 黔驴 技穷 (qian lü ji qiong) – ‘the donkey from Guizhou has  exhausted all its tricks’. The story tells of a tiger initially terrified  by a donkey it has never seen before. The donkey brays loudly  and kicks. But once the tiger realises the donkey has only a few  tricks, its fear disappears. When the donkey has exhausted its  limited ‘skills’, the tiger pounces and kills it. 

So the idiom 黔驴技穷 refers to someone who appears  formidable at first but turns out to have very little substance: one  might think of Donald Trump. One day after launching ‘Project  Freedom’, he abandoned it. Why? He had run out of tricks – or,  as he might prefer to put it, cards. 

Many Chinese invoke this idiom when discussing American  attempts to contain China. Tariffs, sanctions and technological  restrictions once seemed overwhelming. But after years of  confrontation, many now feel the United States has revealed the  limits of its power. The fear has diminished. 

This may be Trump’s greatest unintended legacy in China. He  altered not only how Chinese people saw America, but how  China saw itself. What began as mockery of an unconventional  American president evolved into a broader reassessment of  global power, national identity and the meaning of American  power itself. 

For many Chinese today, the tiger no longer trembles before the  donkey from Guizhou.