What Chinese, Russian, and Iranian reactions to the Trump assassination attempt tell us about America’s geopolitical rivals
The American presidential race was in upheaval again last week, after former President Trump was nearly assassinated at a rally on July 13.
The American media is rightly focused on the killer, his motives, and the potential political fallout. But little attention has been paid to how foreign countries, and especially the US’s geopolitical rivals, are covering the event.
This week FilterLabs has been tracking coverage of the assassination attempt in the Chinese, Iranian, and Russian media ecosystems. Some analysts are concerned that these countries are forming an anti-Western bloc, an “axis of upheaval.”
In our analysis, we measured sentiment in the coverage in these countries’ mainstream media outlets and online discussion and social posts, and we used our data platform Talisman to look more closely at the emerging narratives. Our investigation revealed something about each country, and about the challenges they pose to American interests.
China
Sentiment related to Trump remained relatively stable in Chinese media (some of which we gathered from Chinese-language media outside of the mainland):
Most of the headlines reported on the assassination attempt neutrally, without editorializing. At the same time, a few narratives were emerging. One article speculated that the assassination attempt improved Trump’s election prospects, while another pointed out that it pushed questions about Biden’s mental acuity off the front page. Stranger narratives also bubbled up. In particular, several stories claimed that the US media had initially identified the shooter as Chinese, before quickly retracting the accusation.
In the days after the assassination attempt, the Chinese media turned its attention to what a Trump presidency might mean for China. An article in a Queensland-based Chinese-language paper warned that Trump’s election could lead to a downturn for the Chinese stock market, and another mentioned Trump’s pledge to make Taiwan pay the US military to protect it.
In contrast to mainstream sources, sentiment on Chinese social media saw definite movement after the assassination attempt:
Commentators were impressed with Trump’s narrow escape and thought it increased his odds of winning the White House. “Even without this incident, Trump would have been elected,” one wrote. “Biden is completely demented, urinating and incoherent at any time. No one dares to hand over the fate of the country to such a person.” Another wrote, “Trump likes to shake his head when he speaks, and this habit saved his life! Trump is really a tough guy. Even when danger occurred, he still shouted ‘Fight, fight, fight!’”
A conspiracy theory also emerged. According to a few posts, Trump and his campaign might have planned the whole thing in order to look good. This possibility was quickly rejected. “Do you dare to let someone shoot you in the ear? Think before you speak.”
As in the mainstream Chinese-language news, social media users also speculated about what a Trump presidency might mean for Taiwan, the Chinese stock market, and oil prices.
Iran
Like the mainstream Chinese press, Iranian media adopted a fairly neutral tone in its headlines, with the result that sentiment remained relatively level:
As in Chinese media, a few articles questioned the genuineness of the attempt, and others predicted that his survival would buoy his election chances. The most common narrative, however, was about Israel and Palestine. “What happened to Trump can also happen to Netanyahu,” one article read. Multiple articles asked why the world media was covering the assassination attempt instead of deaths in Gaza.
On Iranian social media, sentiment in stories on Trump dropped. (Note that due to variations in time zones and time stamping, some content discussing the shooting shows up in the data for June 12.)
Once again, commentators asked why the assassination attempt garnered so much coverage, compared to the ongoing war in Gaza. “A simple scratch of an animal's ear like Trump shook the world and stayed at the top of the world's news for hours and attracted the attention of millions of people,” wrote one commentator, “but the martyrdom of 150 Palestinian civilians was treated like a normal event and the Western media did not pay any attention to it. Selective humanity.” There were also many posts speculating that the assassination attempt may have been staged.
Russia
Sentiment related to Trump in mainstream Russian media stories dropped:
The majority of the headlines about the shooting were neutral, but many articles ventured into conspiracy theory. In most cases here, it was not Trump but Biden who orchestrated the assassination attempt. “The domestic political crisis in America is growing (or is playing out like clockwork). It will now be impossible to explain to Trump's supporters that the Democrats were not involved in the assassination attempt,” one commentator wrote. Another article offered a “detailed breakdown” of why Biden knew about the assassination beforehand and how he orchestrated it.
There were also articles that touched on domestic affairs and Ukraine. Putin, according to one article, had survived 12 such attempts, “not counting those prepared by the Ukrainian GRU.”
On Russian social media, sentiment in stories about Trump also trended in a negative direction :
Opinion on the social media site OK was split over who had engineered the shooting, Biden or Trump. Others took the event as a chance to be cynical about the United States. “People get shot in a democracy?” read one sarcastic post, which echoed frequently across mainstream and social media comment sections. “Where is America heading!” asked another. “60 years ago, the late Kennedy was killed in a moving car. And today they can’t properly shoot Trump on the podium. Total degradation of everything and everyone.” Users on one forum said that the Americans and Ukrainians would use this opportunity to blame the assassination attempt on Putin.
After a few days, Russian mainstream and social media turned from the assassination attempt to the question of what a second Trump presidency would mean for them. On the one hand, Trump had promised to talk directly with Putin, with no intermediaries. On the other hand, he had promised to improve relations with Russia during his first presidential campaign, and failed to deliver.
In Sum
The Chinese, Russian, and Iranian responses to the assassination had important similarities and differences. One similarity was cynicism, which often veered into conspiracy theories. It couldn’t have been a lone gunman. Either Trump or Biden must have been behind the shooting.
The differences, however, were equally if not more important. Commentators in each country tended to focus on connections between the event and local and national issues: the Chinese stock market and Taiwan, the Israel-Hamas war, or the war in Ukraine. These countries are united in their dislike for the United States, but they also all have their own interests and agendas.
This is not directly contrary to the thesis of an “axis of upheaval,” but it does suggest that careful consideration will have to be given to how durable such international collations would be without deeper alignment among the respective citizens in the separate countries. If the last several years have shown us anything, even some of the more authoritarian countries are still reactive to the attitudes and behaviors of local populations.