US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation.
Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世).
The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines.
Photo: AFP
Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week, they have become hot property again.
“In the days after he won the election there was a lot of interest,” said Hong, who originally designed the statues as a joke. “Politicians are normally so boring, while [Trump] is this massive online figure who often says fantastical things.”
Hong, 47, estimates that he has shifted hundreds of the ceramic creations in the past few years.
They raise a smile among customers because Trump’s “personality and the shape of the statue are two opposite extremes,” he said.
Each figure comes in packaging emblazoned with a Chinese phrase that translates to: “Make your company great again,” a play on Trump’s well-worn slogan for restoring American supremacy.
Copycat versions have even appeared on shopping platforms in the US — including Amazon and Chinese-owned Temu — for up to US$45.
“It’s a good laugh to poke some fun at authority figures and famous people,” said Hong, sitting barefoot on the floor of his minimalist studio.
Hong’s loose white clothing, shaved head and softly spoken nature bear little resemblance to the eccentric subjects of his sculpting. He recently began designing a similarly tongue-in-cheek effigy of another US luminary — Trump backer Elon Musk, who seems set to play a major role in his administration.
The statue casts the controversial billionaire in the style of the Marvel superhero Iron Man, clad in a rippling suit of metal armor.
In Hong’s version, though, a large rocket protrudes from Musk’s groin to symbolize the SpaceX chief executive’s galactic ambitions.
Despite toeing the line between homage and offense, Hong said he has a lot of admiration for Musk, whose electric vehicle company Tesla operates a massive factory in Shanghai and enjoys robust sales in China.
“Musk’s rockets are awesome — he’s brought the price of rockets down a lot,” he said. “He has done, as an individual entrepreneur, what an entire country can’t even do.”
Hong declined to comment on Trump’s policies toward China, a sensitive topic in the Asian nation, but many expect relations with the US to deteriorate further after Trump’s inauguration.
On the election campaign trail, Trump took a tough line on Beijing, vowing even higher tariffs on Chinese imports.
He previously imposed onerous levies during a bruising trade dispute in his first term — measures largely preserved by his successor US President Joe Biden.
Trump also angered Chinese leaders with his brash rhetoric, notably blaming Beijing for the decline of US manufacturing and calling the pathogen that causes COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.”
Yet the 78-year-old still appears to have many admirers in China.
“I still think he’s just as funny [as before],” Hong said. “Every day there’s interesting news when he’s president.”
Despite the renewed interest, Hong no longer sells his Trump statues on Chinese sites after they removed his listings — perhaps, he said, because they were deemed insulting to Buddhists.
Still, orders keep rolling in from tourists who visit Hong’s workshop, as well as from friends and acquaintances.
“Now he’s been elected again, the sculpture has exploded in popularity once more,” Hong said.
Perhaps, he added, it was because “Trump is someone with a lot of backstory.”
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
The dramatic US operation that deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro this month might have left North Korean leader Kim Jong-un feeling he was also vulnerable to “decapitation,” a former Pyongyang envoy to Havana said. Lee Il-kyu — who served as Pyongyang’s political counselor in Cuba from 2019 until 2023 — said that Washington’s lightning extraction in Caracas was a worst-case scenario for his former boss. “Kim must have felt that a so-called decapitation operation is actually possible,” said Lee, who now works for a state-backed think tank in Seoul. North Korea’s leadership has long accused Washington of seeking to remove it from power
RSS