Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for US president, is the most extreme China basher in memory. In his first debate with Hillary Clinton, he blamed China for stealing jobs from Americans, for devaluing its currency and for engaging in state-sponsored cyberhacking. “Look at what China is doing to our country,” he said in his opening statement. “They are using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China.”

Not surprisingly, only 22 per cent of the Chinese public sees him favourably. What is surprising is that a large chunk of relatively well-informed elite option in China favours Mr Trump for US president. The Global Times, a state-supported nationalist newspaper, wrote that “many Chinese prefer Trump”.

What explains this relatively positive assessment of Mr Trump in China? One reason is the expectation that Mrs Clinton as president would take a more hardline and confrontational approach with Beijing.