Althouse: “Let those peasants in the United States wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization."

April 15, 2025

“Let those peasants in the United States wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization."

"The Chinese people do not cause trouble, nor are they afraid of trouble. Pressure, threats and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China."

Said "a top Chinese official," quoted in "China fumes ‘peasants in the US’ will suffer as country issues stark warning on Trump’s ‘shameless’ tariff war" (NY Post).

74 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...: Any and all peasants would do well for themselves "wailing in front of Chinese Civilization" as opposed to being buried in it. There are sections of the rammed-earth Han wall where the fossilized remains of its peasant builders can still be seen if one wishes.; 4/15/25, 11:53 AM
deepelemblues said...: China is really showing its weakness.; 4/15/25, 11:56 AM
robother said...: At least he's showing there's a lot of common ground between the Chinese government and the Democratic base. Both consider Trump's voters mere peasants.; 4/15/25, 11:56 AM
William said...: Cigarettes are definitely an addiction, but here's the good news about tobacco addiction. Nobody ever missed a rent payment or beat up their spouse because of cigarettes. A trade war is definitely a form or war, but, Great Britain excluded, nobody ever fired artillery shells because of tariffs........Here's another lame metaphor. I know that watts, volts, and amps are in some way related, and I know that if you get them mixed up you can end up electrocuted. In like way, tariffs, free trade, and the economy are all related, and if you screw them up you can end up with a Depression. We have a trillion dollar trade imbalance and, just recently, the stock market lost twelve trillion dollars in market worth. I hope we get this straightened out soon. Perhaps we can inflict more damage on the Chinese economy than they can on ours, but no one will be a winner.....Nobody won WWI, and even the ostensible winners went on to suffer greater losses.; 4/15/25, 12:00 PM
Ambrose said...: It's nice he's proud of the 5000 years of Chinese history - we in the West could learn from that.; 4/15/25, 12:00 PM
Deirdre Mundy said...: The interesting bit is that China still actually has peasants, and the U.S. does not. This makes me wonder if perhaps Chinese officials fail to understand U.S. society and levels of wealth. Many poor Americans have more material wealth than many working class Chinese, and it is possible that much of the Chinese leadership does not understand the level of wealth they are confronting.

The US may only have 10 Trilliion more a year in GDP than China, but it's spread among a much smaller population, so our per capita GDP is 7 times theirs. I suspect Communist leadership mired in statistics may not realize the social, political and economic effects of that difference in wealth.

Or, at least, may realize they cannot let their ACTUAL peasants learn about that difference.; 4/15/25, 12:04 PM
Eva Marie said...: We’re peasants and we’re revolting. (at least that’s what the elites say); 4/15/25, 12:04 PM
Paul Zrimsek said...: In another 5000 years the Chinese might catch up to what we peasants have accomplished in 250.; 4/15/25, 12:05 PM
stlcdr said...: We've been called worse.

But let us US peasants decide which Chinese peasants we want to deal with and visa versa, and have the governments get out of the way.; 4/15/25, 12:09 PM
Peachy said...: Communism draped in crony capitalism - sux.; 4/15/25, 12:11 PM
narciso said...: does anyone actually identify themselves, or is it all kabuki; 4/15/25, 12:14 PM
Iman said...: Donald Trump don’t trust China. China is asshoe!; 4/15/25, 12:15 PM
Iman said...: 5,000 years. Has China ever figured out why p-traps are used in plumbing?; 4/15/25, 12:18 PM
Iman said...: https://youtu.be/hicC53AhZ6Y; 4/15/25, 12:20 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: We export a lot of pork and soy beans to China. I'm sure that 5,000 years of Chinese Civilization will be a great comfort to the Chinese peasants as they try to choke down all the cheap plastics and crappy electronics they're not selling us for dinner.; 4/15/25, 12:27 PM
Jupiter said...: "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the wailing of their peasants!"; 4/15/25, 12:27 PM
Jupiter said...: We doin' the fun-kay fun-kay peasant wail!; 4/15/25, 12:28 PM
Indigo Red said...: Civilization. Is that what they call it?; 4/15/25, 12:30 PM
dbp said...: Do the Chinese think the USA has peasants? Highly provincial of them.; 4/15/25, 12:41 PM
narciso said...: what was that line attributed to Mao about the French Revolution 'too soon to tell'; 4/15/25, 12:42 PM
Josephbleau said...: "China fumes ‘peasants in the US’ will suffer as country issues stark warning on Trump’s ‘shameless’ tariff war"

China wants you to know that even though you are a peasant, they are looking out for your best interest. China says, you are going to miss our plastic shit when it goes away.

The US innovates, China imitates, and Europe regulates.; 4/15/25, 12:43 PM
Mr. T. said...: Chinese "civilization" has crumbled and fallen half a dozen times and was even conquered by the mongols.

If this is an example of the education product of China, I'm no longer worried about us outpacing us.; 4/15/25, 12:44 PM
Mr. T. said...: Pardon, my samsung text predicition.

Should have read, "them outpacing us."; 4/15/25, 12:46 PM
Josephbleau said...: Look, we so high, like walking in air, vintage air, but China see you peasants there, you no hide, 5000 year, we best concern troll ever have.; 4/15/25, 12:49 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: narciso said, "what was that line attributed to Mao about the French Revolution 'too soon to tell'"

It was Zhou EnLai. That comment is frequently misattributed to Mao.; 4/15/25, 12:52 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Bold talk from a guy in a coolie hat.; 4/15/25, 12:54 PM
Mr. D said...: If everybody had a notion across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be serfin' like in Wuhan, yay; 4/15/25, 12:55 PM
bagoh20 said...: It will be painful, but we must decouple from China. We are paying for our own demise, and the world is full of alternatives without that downside.; 4/15/25, 12:56 PM
bagoh20 said...: So I guess it's working.; 4/15/25, 12:57 PM
Rocco said...: narciso said…
“what was that line attributed to Mao about the French Revolution 'too soon to tell'"

RideSpaceMountain responded…
It was Zhou EnLai. That comment is frequently misattributed to Mao.

And Premier Zhou thought the question was about the Paris student riots just a couple of years earlier in 1968, not the French Revolution two centuries earlier that the questioner was actually asking about.; 4/15/25, 1:01 PM
Howard said...: The Chinese are calling you people pussies you can't take a punch. We shall see; 4/15/25, 1:02 PM
Narr said...: China has been one of the oldest and most creative civilizations around. But they have succumbed to invaders more than a few times over their thousands of years, largely because they grew fat and happy and ignored or shunned developments elsewhere.

For most of recorded history the Chinese economy was the largest and most productive in the world, and has been called the engine of the global economic system.

It was their high-end luxury goods that Europeans and eventually Americans craved, which spurred the end-runs around Islamic middlemen that we call the Age of Discovery.

The lesson is that Things Change, and often for the worse.; 4/15/25, 1:22 PM
Anthony said...: China: "Our civilization is 5,000 years old and we're proud of it!"

America: "Ours is a couple hundred." *takes a swig of whiskey, punches China in the mouth*; 4/15/25, 1:28 PM
J Severs said...: It is my amateur understanding that China is always befriending poor countries, and these countries are grateful for the attention, until China reminds them that China always knows best. It something like China always sees itself as the Big Brother to everyone else.; 4/15/25, 1:30 PM
bagoh20 said...: With the majority of the left prepared to leave the country if we are attacked, and the majority of the right wiling to stay and fight, we know who we need to count on, and who will be stabbing us in the back if things get anything but easy.; 4/15/25, 1:31 PM
Dave Begley said...: China needs the US export market desperately. Mass unemployment in China if they don't knuckle under. Regime change.; 4/15/25, 1:36 PM
bagoh20 said...: China has survived the worst calamities of mankind, but with 5000 years of civilization they still are struggling to accomplish things The United States did 50 years ago with only 200 years in the race, and they needed to steal the knowledge just to get where they are. Question is: are we capable of what we did 50 years ago? The thing holding us back is our theft of their ideas.; 4/15/25, 1:40 PM
Aggie said...: If you've ever worked with Asians, you quickly realize how fundamentally different the structure of these societies is, compared to the West. It's foreign enough to where you begin to wonder if you're the same species. Behavior patterns, social cues, interactive dynamics, all completely different. But there's something common across all of humanity: When the rhetoric starts sharpening, that means you're getting to the heart of the matter.; 4/15/25, 1:44 PM
Scott Gustafson said...: A decade ago China's growth rate was such that it would surpass US GDP in less than 10 years. The gap was $7T. Then Xi asserted more control. Now the gap is $10T.; 4/15/25, 1:45 PM
rhhardin said...: Tucking sweatpants inside a sock can keep them out of a bicycle chain.; 4/15/25, 1:45 PM
Aggie said...: ..."“The US isn’t after our tariffs but our very survival,” Xia said in a televised speech. “The US has repeatedly contained and suppressed Hong Kong ...

So says "Xia Baolong, a senior Chinese official who oversees Hong Kong and Macao..." You know, Hong Kong: The place that used to be a free, open society before the Chinese rejected the agreed handover timeline with the British and brutally clamped down on freedoms.; 4/15/25, 1:49 PM
Martin said...: So the CCP has given up on destroying the Four Olds; 4/15/25, 1:51 PM
Mr. T. said...: You had 5000 of civilization and you pissed it away on the CCP why?

Doesn't matter your history and longevity China. The CCP has lost the Mandate of Heaven.; 4/15/25, 1:55 PM
Lazarus said...: What the anonymous "top Chinese" official said may very well represent what top Chinese officials think about the US. There's also a chance that the one who was willing to speak to the US press was the biggest drunken asshoe in the Politburo, or a bored petty tyrant in the depths of Gansu province trying to stir up trouble.

Apparently, the 5000 Years of Chinese Civilization is something every Chinese schoolchild learns about, though Western historians think Chinese civilization is a little younger. Or a lot older. Much depends on how one defines "civilization."; 4/15/25, 1:56 PM
ambisinistral said...: The CCP, the party running the Chinese government, is actually only a little over 100 years old. The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, which makes it younger than Donald Trump who was born in 1946.; 4/15/25, 2:12 PM
Bob Boyd said...: 5,000 years of history shows there's no body better at making peasants suffer than the Chinese.; 4/15/25, 2:12 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Every advance the Chinese have made the last 40 years has been stolen from the West. I think Begley's hunch about regime change is the most likely outcome if they keep playing hardball.; 4/15/25, 2:14 PM
mikee said...: As a descendent of self-admittedly peasant stock from Slovakia, Scotland, Ireland, and the Netherlands, I resemble those remarks. All I can say is that my family tree went from peasants in Europe to workers in America to college grads working worldwide. We think and do and say what we want, and thus succeed in life. The peasants of China, and that includes everyone not a member in good standing of the CCP regardless of economic success, are solely the source of wealth for the goverrning kleptocracy which is a genocidal one at that. Where do I send my donation to the Chinese peasants for the rope to use on lamp posts?; 4/15/25, 2:17 PM
Wince said...: Aptly, JD Vance said the US can’t anff to allow itself to become China’s vassal.; 4/15/25, 2:18 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: We're going to break a few Chinese rice bowls. A bad thing for the Chinese, a relief for the USA.; 4/15/25, 2:23 PM
Butkus51 said...: They've gone from eating with their hands to eating with 2 sticks in only 5000 years.; 4/15/25, 2:57 PM
Temujin said...: China rattles its sabers. Loud noises to distract from two things: Its own demographic time bomb, and its own economic slump- both pounding at their door.; 4/15/25, 3:00 PM
Harun said...: Vance should not have called Chinese workers peasants.

Yes, they used to literally be peasants. But its not nice and not true anymore really.; 4/15/25, 3:19 PM
Paul said...: Lots of luck with that "top Chinese official". We survived without 'made in China' for centuries.. we can survive again.; 4/15/25, 3:32 PM
Lazarus said...: Difficulties in translation at one end or the other may also have been involved. The official or the reporter may have found the wrong word in their dictionaries. It also seems like the whole world has trouble with the word 'peasant' and its equivalents in other languages. Is it an objective term referring to a social class, a label that members of that class may even take pride in, or is it an insult and a cause for shame? China has more of a problem, since what Mao had to say about peasants differs markedly from what Marx thought of the peasantry.

China rattles its sabers.
Loud noises to distract from two things:
Its own demographic time bomb

That is almost a haiku. Keep working on it.; 4/15/25, 3:34 PM
rhhardin said...: China's civilization brought us rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, plus Chinese opera and fire drills. Some decent Erhu music though.; 4/15/25, 4:09 PM
Limited blogger said...: peasant is the translated word

I'm sure the actual meaning of the word used is much more demeaning.; 4/15/25, 4:19 PM
MountainMan said...: The only business practices the Chinese developed in their 5000 years are lying, cheating, and stealing.; 4/15/25, 4:20 PM
Josephbleau said...: I think an old mining story can clear this up,

Two American guys and a chinaman got together and decided to see what they could do with an old shutdown mine in a likely quartz vein. They pulled all their things together and one of the Americans said, I’ll go up to the stope level and set a few stulls and drill a round and see what shows. The other American said, well, I’ll level up some of this busted track, hot up the motor and empty some of these old chutes to make a mill stockpile, and they told the Chinaman he could be on supply.

So they did their tour and at the end the two Americans were standing outby the portal and one said where’s that Chinaman he was supposed to be on supply and I ain’t heard of him all day. Just then he jumped out from behind a tree and yelled “SUPPLY!”

An that is why Trump will win the trade war.; 4/15/25, 4:29 PM
mccullough said...: Nice try, Pooh Bear; 4/15/25, 4:52 PM
n.n said...: The audacity of the American peasantry to question the labor and environmental arbitrage games played by the mainland Chinese.; 4/15/25, 5:16 PM
Hassayamper said...: peasant is the translated word... I'm sure the actual meaning of the word used is much more demeaning.

The Chinese are exceptionally blunt and politically incorrect. A white person who said in English what you can hear Chinese natives saying in any Chinese city in their own language would be considered a vicious racist.

Since the 2008 Olympics there has been an effort to get Chinese natives to change their vocabulary to refer to non-Chinese as "foreign visitors" or "foreign friends" or at least a neutral term like "outsider", instead of "white devils", "bastard ghosts", "black devils", "foreign demons", "foreign mongrels", "cow stench", or any of a number of other insulting epithets that they freely use with the most casual and careless disregard for the niceties of Western-style political correctness. I don't think it has had much success.; 4/15/25, 5:41 PM
Cameron said...: The part I find really amusing is the anti-Trumpers supporting gross and blatant racism by the Chinese while decrying Trump as a racism. They really are truly blind to their hypocrisy.; 4/15/25, 6:06 PM
Cameron said...: "Dave Begley said...
China needs the US export market desperately. Mass unemployment in China if they don't knuckle under. Regime change."

Its actually WAY worse than that. China imports about 40% of its food from foreign countries - and we're talking basic staples. Without its US exports it can't afford that. You're talking mass starvation within a comparatively short time period. And when that happens the peasants will revolt.

Even know many factory workers in China live a subsistence existence. So the journey to famine will be a short one.; 4/15/25, 6:10 PM
Arashi said...: But did China really invent all of the things that are attributed to them? Their current operating method is to steal anything and everything and pretend they invented it. Perhaps they have always done so? Perhaps they are just a bunch of thieves out to get as much money as they can before the CCP gives them all a haircut?

They do think they are destined to rule the world with the rest of us making up the 'peasant class', working to fulfill their will at out expense. I think we do not really understand them and they sure as heck have no clue abpout us.; 4/15/25, 6:11 PM
Cameron said...: "J Severs said...
It is my amateur understanding that China is always befriending poor countries, and these countries are grateful for the attention, until China reminds them that China always knows best. It something like China always sees itself as the Big Brother to everyone else."

China literally sees itself as the centre of civilisation.

"The "Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo) name for China originates from the Chinese language itself, where Zhongguo literally translates to "central state" or "central states". This reflects a historical Chinese worldview that viewed their country as the center of civilization and the world, with surrounding regions as less developed or "barbarian".; 4/15/25, 6:12 PM
RMc said...: The Chinese people do not cause trouble

Well, there was that little matter of letting loose a virus that killed nine digits of human beings, but what the hey.; 4/15/25, 7:13 PM
Jimmy said...: @Cameron-well said. China is a country with very little land usable for farming.
It depends now on exporting cheap crap to EU or America, and uses every opportunity to blackmail, bribe or censor its opponents.
The huge amount of money it spends in Congress, given to both parties, has served it well. As well as the billions it gave to Harvard, Yale et al.
Trump realizes that China is the biggest threat to world peace, and that it is a paper tiger.
Unfortunately, the left in America thinks China is a great template for a modern society.; 4/15/25, 7:18 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: The Chinese are very likely in bad shape economically. They have an export driven economy, based on low wages. There’re wages are now being undercut by the neighbors that they are trying to dominate. They have a new, struggling now, middle class as a result, with their savings almost entirely invested in their cratering real estate market. So, exports were slowing, and what could they do? Cut prices? For how long? Then, Trump imposed tariffs, primarily on them, while pushing to bring back manufacturing here, along with pushing to use friendlier countries to do the manufacturing and assembly previously done by China.

Their economy should react and reduce overproduction that can’t be sold profitably. But they are, well, communists, which means central planning and decision making, so cannot react quickly at all. All that they know how to do is to double down on what they have been doing, and that doesn’t work against te US under Trump.; 4/15/25, 7:18 PM
Narr said...: "The Chinese are exceptionally blunt and politically incorrect."

That's one of the good things about them. The differences between Chinese and, say, Africans refute the notion of human equality that we like to pretend is some great truth.

They know it and don't hide from it.; 4/15/25, 7:49 PM
n.n said...: 5000 years under Taiwanese dissidents or 100 years under communists?; 4/15/25, 8:27 PM
FredSays said...: Seems like there is a lot of commonality of attitude when talking about peasants and deplorables.; 4/15/25, 9:08 PM
Spiros Pappas said...: 5,000 years? What are they talking about? Cities or written language?; 4/16/25, 8:35 AM
John Smith said...: Does Begley think this trade war is a surprise to China or that they are unprepared.; 4/16/25, 11:56 PM