China Blasts 'Ignorant' JD Vance Remarks

Vice President JD Vance did not calm US-China tensions last week with remarks about Chinese people being "peasants." In a Fox & Friends interview, Vance said the "globalist economy" is based on the US incurring debt to buy things other countries make. "We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture," he said. There was an angry backlash after the remarks went viral in China, CNN reports. Asked about Vance's comments on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, "It's both astonishing and lamentable to hear this vice president make such ignorant and disrespectful remarks."

Some social media users in China called for Vance to be banned from the country, while others noted that he had written about his own humble background in his Hillbilly Elegy memoir, the BBC reports. "We may be peasants, but we have the world's best high-speed rail system, the most powerful logistics capabilities, and leading AI, autonomous driving, and drone technologies," one Weibo user wrote, per CNN. "Aren't such peasants quite impressive?" (More JD Vance stories.)