China’s Take on the US Presidential Debate

Spain got the worst of it Wednesday night, during the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, but Romney also managed to get in a shot at China, asserting that he would, “crack down on China, if and when they cheat.”

Governor Romney probably doesn’t care, but it turns out there were a lot of people in China watching the debate, lighting up social media with their real time reactions.

Lily Kuo, a reporter for Quartz, a new global business news site sponsored by The Atlantic, discusses the thousands of real-time reactions to the style and substance of the candidates and the debate forum itself.

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Marco Werman: As far as the community of nations, Spain got the worst of it last night, but Mitt Romney also managed to get in a shot at China, asserting he would crack down on China if and when they cheat. Governor Romney probably didn’t know it, but it turns out there were a lot of people in China watching the debate, lighting up social media with their real time reactions. Lily Kuo is a reporter for Quartz, a global business website that launched last week. She’d been following the Chinese social media reaction to the US debates and she joins us now to talk about that. Give us a sense, Lily, of scale here. How bit a topic was the US presidential debate on Chinese social media? How many people were talking about it?

Lily Kuo: So if you looked at the posts for the US presidential election on Sina Weibo today, there were 1.2 million hits. Last night if you searched for Obama’s name it came up with more than 9 million; if you searched for Romney’s name it came up with a little under 700,000 hits.

Werman: And that sounds like big numbers. Are they big for China on this kind of topic?

Kuo: I’d say that’s actually pretty average, but this is a hot topic.

Werman: So the first thing we wanna know, overall reactions, but who do the Chinese think won the debate?

Kuo: You know, I’d say that’s pretty even. I think that people were a little disappointed with Obama. People were saying that he had lost his edge and things like normally eloquent Obama you know, seemed to suffer under the stress. But people also were not that impressed with Romney. Some people said that he seemed you know, just not very natural or you know, didn’t have the sort of genuine charisma.

Werman: And apparently one user of Weibo is plugged into US football. Obama’s debating, is it as bad as the New York Jets offense?

Kuo: That’s correct.

Werman: Now, what did people make of the format of the debate, the style of the men? Is there anything like this that they can compare it to?

Kuo: You know, I don’t think that there is. As you know, China is going through its own leadership transition and it’s a very opaque process of how the next leaders are picked, how the next Chinese officials are chosen. It’s a very highly orchestrated process, so I think that sort of open debate is very rare in China and it’s you know, kind of refreshing to watch.

Werman: Right, and also refreshing is one person of Weibo was impressed by the background to the debates, like the screen behind the two candidates. What was that about?

Kuo: Right, so that’s actually one of my favorite posts. A user by the name of [Chinese name] said that you know, that he wasn’t that impressed with anything that Obama or Romney said, but he, but the words of the US Constitution that he could see in the background of the debate were what impressed him. And he was saying you know, this is, for America this is a luxury, this is a blessing. They don’t have to worry about the stability of their political system. They don’t have to worry about the things that they say are gonna erupt into social instability. So they can just get down to business and talk about takes, the deficit, healthcare, education or what have you.

Werman: Perhaps a romantic view of American democracy, but it’s still kind of poignant. Lily, you’ve been observing Chinese social media for a while, what surprised you most about the reactions from China to the debates?

Kuo: Well there wasn’t really anything that surprised me because I think that Chinese social media, especially the users on Weibo, they’re very smart. They are, they’re very young, they’re very tuned into the news around the world. So they’re ironic, they’re smart, they’re very observant–actually you know one thing that’s interesting, you asked about the format and one person said that they kind of wished that it was more like an X-Factor type of show. They said you know, every American voter should get a chance to sit in the seat where the host sits and then test their verbal skills and you know, see how they do. And then when they do something good they can spin around and say okay, okay, I want you.

Werman: Right, yeah, what’s that show, The Voice, where you don’t see the actual performer and then you hear something and then you’re kind of yeah, I like that. What a novel idea.

Kuo: Yeah, maybe we should try that.

Werman: Lily Kuo, a reporter with Quartz. It’s a new global business news site sponsored by The Atlantic magazine. Thanks so much, good to talk with you.

Kuo: Thanks very much.

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