As Election Day approaches in the United States, the Chinese are paying closer attention to the selection of the next president.
Government censorship, the language barrier and an unfamiliarity with American political conventions have left many Chinese confused about the process. Many seem to have derived their sense of how the system works from “House of Cards,” the Netflix series about an unscrupulous politician who stops at nothing, not even murder, to scheme his way to power. The show was enormously popular in China.
Last year, You Tianlong, a Chinese doctoral student in justice studies at Arizona State University, co-founded a podcast called Xuanmei, or “U.S. Election,’’ aimed at younger, urban Chinese. Mr. You and his partners — Hua Jianping, who writes on American politics, and Zhuang Qiaoyi, who holds a master’s degree in international relations from Syracuse University — and their guests discuss topics that have ranged from voter registration to how campaign managers tap into data to advance candidates’ prospects.
An estimated 70,000 people listen the podcasts every month. In August, Mr. You published “Get Elected: A Very Short Introduction to the U.S. Presidential Election” (Taihai Publishing House, Beijing) with Mr. Hua and Lin Yao, who has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.
In an interview, Mr. You explained that the Chinese are more interested in the United States presidential election than ever, but don’t always understand it.
What do Chinese get wrong about the American political process?
I feel that the biggest misunderstanding is that many Chinese take “House of Cards” too seriously. American politics is complicated, even for Americans. For many Chinese, it’s just too confusing. So people take a shortcut. “House of Cards’’ is so real for them that it filters their impressions of American politics.
Another misunderstanding is derived from the negative propaganda many Chinese have absorbed over the years, that is, that American politics is controlled by money or big capitalists and that politicians are just puppets controlled by capitalists. It’s possible that there are serious problems in American politics. But as far as plutocratic politics is concerned, it’s not as bad as people in China imagine.
On the other hand, some liberal intellectuals in China believe that the United States is good in every way. Its political system is good and its people’s voices are heard. They attribute every achievement of the United States to its superior political system.
I feel that many Chinese aren’t really observing American politics as much as they’re projecting their own biases onto American politics.
Are people in China are better informed about the presidential election than four or eight years ago?
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