Yuge in China is the new Big in Japan, as least where Ivanka Trump is concerned.
Among the Chinese public, President Trump’s poised and plasticine-calm daughter is considered something beyond a role model and a bit closer to a goddess, an emblem of physical perfection and professional aspiration.
Why? She looks Chinese, reports Refinery29. Comments about her Asian resemblance abound online. One commenter on the Chinese version of Quora wrote: “For some reason, her blend of Scottish, German and Czech heritage gave Ivanka an inexplicable Oriental beauty. I’m totally blown away.”
The first daughter is obsessively tracked by tabloids, gossip sites and news outlets who report her movements and maneuverings in breathless tones: Xinhua calls her “elegant and poised”; the “South China Morning Post” calls her a “charmer-in-chief,” and she is called a “goddess” on social media.
Refinery29 breaks it down: “She deftly wields the two things that have granted women power since the beginning of time: beauty and money. The way she looks and the way she interacts with her wealth is especially intriguing because she is, in many ways, a “miracle.” To Chinese citizens, she is the exception to the rule and the break in a curse; she has achieved something that has evaded their own children.”
Commerce suggests that historically Red China is taking on an orangish hue: There are over 250 unofficial Ivanka-branded products in China, including milk powder and sanitary napkins.
This is interesting, considering how critical her father has been of China, calling the country a “currency manipulator” during the presidential campaign and promising punitive action, before reversing his position after taking office, in economical prose: “They’re not currency manipulators,” he said.
Today, it is clear that the country is massaging Ivanka’s bank account, if not her ego. This week, it was reported by CNN that Ivanka Trump’s companies have filed for 14 new trademark applications in China, in addition to the 36 trademark applications the company filed in the country last year. The trademarks include products ranging from tapestries and video-game equipment to snack foods and alcohol.
Ethics experts have been less obsequious. A trio of them told the Chicago Tribune that the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, have “so many potential conflicts of interest that if they abide by ethics laws and past White House practices, they won’t be able to advise the president on three of his top priorities: Trade, tax reform and Wall Street deregulation.”
