For China’s trolls, ‘Chairman Trump’ and ‘Eyeliner Man’ are easy targets

A YouTuber who used to make parody music videos about Chinese leader Xi Jinping produced “The Song of MAGA,” a satire of President Donald Trump’s vision for the United States.

A nationalistic TikToker who whitewashes China’s persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang made a video mocking Vice President JD Vance’s purported use of eyeliner in full drag fashion while demanding an apology for a comment Vance had made about “Chinese peasants.”

In a post on the social media platform RedNote, a video of Trump admiring a portrait of himself at the Justice Department is accompanied with a North Korean song, “The Whole World Envies Us,” likening him to dictator Kim Il Sung.

United by their disdain for the Trump administration, Chinese internet users of different political views have created an impressive collection of work. The images, videos and music, mostly generated by artificial intelligence, mock the U.S. leaders for what the Chinese believe are ridiculous and outrageous policies and remarks.

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The trolling reflects shifting perceptions of the United States in China. The Trump administration has provided rich material for Communist Party propagandists — it has never been easier for Beijing to stand on a moral high ground. The more liberal-minded Chinese, having overcome the initial shock at actions that reminded them of their own authoritarian government, are applying their creativity to Washington. “I love the United States, but Trump has damaged American democracy and freedom, and harmed the country’s image on the international stage,” the creator of “The Song of MAGA” wrote in a text message. The AI-generated music video, based on a famous 1960s revolutionary song, “We March on the Great Road,” opens with characters resembling Trump, Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Elon Musk holding little red books in front of a large red banner that says, “SERVE THE PEOPLE.”

The lyric goes:

We march on the broad highway

High in spirit, strong in drive each day

Led by Chairman Trump, we shout “MAGA!”

Sworn to make America great again — hurrah!

In the video, the four men were depicted marching in the fashion of the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. The characters assembled iPhones, rode scooters like Chinese blue-collar workers and picked tomatoes like Chinese farmers under the scorching sun.

The video’s creator, who declined to disclose their identity for fear of retribution, assigned the four characters modest jobs that millions of Chinese have to scrape by. Trump’s character is a cobbler. Rubio’s is a street vendor selling steamed buns. Vance’s sells produce. Musk’s works on construction sites and, sitting on the curb, sells socks and toys.

Vance has attracted the most brutal trolling. His “peasants” comment offended many Chinese. In a widely shared AI-generated video, a character resembling Vance, in a pink jacket, pink nails and hot pink lipstick, applies eyeliner while saying in a promotional female tone, “Sis, hillbilly brand eyeliner, made in China, reliable quality.”

Another video shows a cartoon character saying: “Vice President Vance, I’m a Chinese peasant. Do you realize your tariff policy will lead to the soaring price of your eyeliner?”

There are so many posts about the topic that Vance is now known as “the eyeliner man” on the Chinese internet.

Trump is mocked for expecting a call from Xi, who’s ghosting him, to make a trade deal. In a widely shared AI-generated image, a character that looks like Trump lies on a pink bed in a pastel-colored children’s bedroom. With his face resting on his hands, he stares at a smartphone. Behind him on the wall is a large portrait of Xi, smiling.

“Hahahaha, who’s going to call after a breakup?” commented a Weibo user with an internet address in the northwestern province of Gansu. “Trump, do you think you’re filming a soap opera?”

There are reasons the Chinese are mocking the four men. Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese goods. Vance called the Chinese people “peasants.” Rubio is (or was) a well-known China hawk. Musk parlayed his influence with Trump into an official role leading budget cuts at Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, whose programs influenced generations of Chinese. (On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked the administration from dismantling the broadcast channels, and Musk said he would cut back his government work to spend more time with his electric car company, Tesla.)

The four men are prime for ridicule because people there face fewer censorship restrictions for mocking foreign leaders than their own. It reminds me of the Soviet joke that an American said he could stand in front of the White House and yell, “To hell with Ronald Reagan,” to which a Russian replied: “That’s nothing. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘To hell with Ronald Reagan,’ too.”

The censors seem to be reining in the trolling. When I tried to share with a small WeChat group an image of Trump, Vance and Musk working on a Nike assembly line, it failed to go through. Links to some of the images and videos I saved no longer work.

China’s strict censorship rules have helped the country’s internet users hone their trolling expertise. It takes skill to simultaneously express views the Communist Party forbids while evading the censors.

Xi has been a favorite target. His nicknames include Winnie the Pooh, for his physical resemblance to the plump cartoon character; “Baozi,” or bun, for his publicity stunt visit to a bun restaurant early in his rule; and “Mao II,” for his revival of some Maoist ideologies.

The national censor banned more than 35,000 sensitive words and combinations of words related to Xi in 2016, according to China Digital Times, a media outlet focusing on censorship. In less than three months in 2020, RedNote compiled a list of 564 new sensitive words referring to Xi.

It’s a lot safer to mock Trump.

A video blogger named Chen Rui has become a national phenomenon for his spot-on Trump impersonations.

From his furrowed eyebrows, pursed lips and tilted head, to the way he opens and closes his arms while speaking, and his intonation and English accent, Chen is top rate. He is known as the Chinese Trump.

He gained some international fame after appearing in a recent livestreaming session with YouTube influencer IShowSpeed from Chongqing, Chen’s hometown in southwestern China. He told IShowSpeed, whose name is Darren Watkins Jr., that he would love to visit America one day.

Chen, whose online alias is Rui Ge, has a wide following on social media platforms and doesn’t talk about Chinese politics in his videos — he likes to show off Chongqing and seems to enjoy making food videos. But he frequently incorporates well-known Trump expressions, such as “You have no cards” and “You haven’t said ‘thank you.'”

In one video, while speaking English, he told his mother after washing the dishes: “You’re not thanking me. You’d better be nice.” He continued: “Maybe tomorrow, I’m not going to wash the dishes. You have no cards.” Then he repeated it in Chinese.

His mother spanked him with a bamboo back scratcher and yelled: “Do I have the cards now?”

The title of the video is “Mom Has the Cards.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.