Professor’s claim China’s friends ‘at the top’ influence US policy goes viral after Donald Trump and Fox News seize on it
- Di Dongsheng’s comments that Beijing could ‘settle issues’ through ‘people at the top’ are seized on by the president and his supporters
- Renmin University academic said China’s friends were mainly influential Wall Street investors
Claims by a Chinese professor about China’s influence over the “inner circle of power” in the US have gone viral after they were seized on by Donald Trump supporters and the outgoing president himself.
Although several commentators inside China questioned the claims made by Di Dongsheng, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, they were seized on by Fox News and Trump later retweeted the clip.
In the November 28 speech, delivered at an event in Shanghai hosted by Guancha.cn, an influential nationalistic website, Di discussed the trade war started by Trump, asking: “So why can’t we fix the Trump administration? Why between 1992 and 2016 were China and the US able to settle all kinds of issues?”
He said: “It’s because we have people at the top. At the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence, we have our old friends.”
He said the Chinese government’s friends are mostly investors in Wall Street, who have “had a very profound influence over America‘s domestic and foreign affairs since the 1970s”.
“We used to heavily rely on them,” Di said. “But the problem is that after 2008, the status of Wall Street has declined and more importantly, after 2016, Wall Street couldn’t fix Trump