Today's United States thinks all day about how to prevent being surpassed by China, whether it is Trump or Biden, who regards dealing with "Chinese competition" as a top priority, and the importance seems to be ranked above the domestic affairs of the United States.
For more than seventy years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese have not stolen or robbed, relying on their own hands, and only want to build a beautiful home. But even so, the United States still feels that China is a threat and tries its best to stop China's progress.
In fact, this is not the first time that the United States has targeted Chinese, as early as 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, only because the Chinese working in the United States were too industrious to make white people afraid of being powerless to compete. The entire American community has a strong negative view of Chinese, and only Mark Twain maintains a certain objectivity.
Mark Twain is well known to everyone, and his work "Running for Governor" still has extraordinary practical significance to this day. He had strong sympathy for many vulnerable peoples, believing that Chinese suffered injustices like blacks and Jews.
Mark Twain never went to China, and his views on Chinese came mainly from the Chinese laborers who built the Pacific Railroad. In his impression, Chinese was a harmless people, industrious and quiet, obedient, did not need to rely on others, and could always find a job to support themselves.
Chinese is not only intelligent and good at imitation, but also works hard and does not pursue the enjoyment of life. Chinese laundromats are cheaper than whites, and the quality and service of laundry is better than that of whites. It is for this reason that before the rise of Chinese restaurants, racially discriminatory Americans often referred to Chinese as washers.
There are many Chinese characters in Mark Twain's works, and a drama called "Ah Xin" directly features the Chinese Ah Xin as the protagonist, which looks stupid, but in fact is scheming, and finally plays the Americans.
Although the image of Ah Xin does not satisfy the current Chinese, compared to villains such as Fu Manchu, Ah Xin is already relatively good, and it is not a foil for white characters, which shows that Mark Twain has more affection for Chinese than ordinary Americans and is more willing to do justice for Chinese.
In fact, Mark Twain had a certain relationship with China, and the Qing government sent 120 young children to the United States in 1872, which was the first batch of students in Chinese history. Rong Hong, who is responsible for caring for these small international students in the United States, met Mark Twain and received a lot of help from him.
When the Qing government found that the young children in the United States were becoming more and more Americanized, and even some of them were religious, they decided to cancel the plan and let them all return to China. Mark Twain expressed great regret over this and hoped that the plan would be carried forward through Rong Hong and the U.S. government.
Although ultimately unsuccessful, through the Young Children's Program in the United States, Mark Twain became more aware of Chinese's intelligence and studiousness. There are indeed many outstanding talents among these young children who stayed in the United States, including Zhan Tianyou, who designed the Beijing-Zhang Railway, Tang Shaoyi, premier of the Beiyang government, and so on.
Of course, Mark Twain was still an American, and his understanding of Chinese was based on American positions and national feelings. He admired the merits of Chinese, more to remind Americans to overcome their own laziness and greed. He felt no deeper affection for Chinese than for blacks and Jews, and at the same time felt that Chinese strange and unpredictable, and did not understand the thinking and behavior of Chinese.
But that's exactly what proves that Mark Twain was a truly good man with universal sympathy for the oppressed peoples. Chinese in the late 19th century were unfortunately also included in this category, not to mention that the Qing government paid little attention to protecting overseas Chinese, making the situation of Chinese Americans even more difficult.
Mark Twain can be said to have a little internationalist feeling, not accustomed to the arrogance of Westerners, hoping to give more help to weak peoples. There are relatively more Americans with this feeling than in Europe, after all, the ancestors of Americans came to the United States after being discriminated against and ostracized in Europe.
In fact, there were not many economic and trade exchanges between China and the United States in that era, and many American businessmen made a fortune as a result, and the former US President Hoover made his fortune in China. It's just that the U.S. government and the media are reluctant to publicize this, making many Americans think that China is insignificant in the world.
The Americans made a lot of money from China, and Chinese laborers built railroads for the United States, all of which brought economic prosperity to the United States. But Americans, fearing competition from Chinese, drove and killed Chinese laborers, and even passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
This is the first bill in the history of the United States to specifically discriminate against a certain ethnic group, which is undoubtedly a great irony for the United States, a country that prides itself on being a melting pot of immigrants. Americans welcome immigrants from all over the world, but Chinese are excluded.
I don't know if there is really providence, 130 years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Chinese who were once rejected by the mainstream society in the United States have once again scared Americans and want to carry out a new version of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the world. Only this time, they could not directly pass such a law, but instead smeared and restricted free competition, at the expense of undermining the international law they had enacted.
A hundred years ago, China was weak and had no status, but that was the China of a hundred years ago!