What did US President Donald Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden say about Asia in the 2020 election cycle? Roll over the dots above to read the candidates' tweets about Asian countries. Press the buttons to filter tweets by Trump or Biden, or by country. Biden's 33 tweets about Asia and Trump's 298 tweets in the 2020 election year are represented by time on the X axis. The Y axis shows number of retweets, a measure that reflects Trump's greater number of followers (~90m) compared to Biden's (~20m).
Below, explore two sets of visualizations of Biden and Trump's tweets on Asian countries through the four-year period of Trump's presidency. The first set compares the number of times the candidates tweeted about different Asian countries. The second set compares their references to 15 terms of importance to the Indo-Pacific region. Circle sizes are normalized to account for Trump's greater number of tweets (20,467) than Biden's (4,264). Sources: Trump Twitter Archive, Joe Biden Tweets.
Among Asian countries, Trump and Biden both tweeted by far the most about China. Both candidates foregrounded trade and military competition, but Trump was relatively silent on human rights issues in relation to China, while Biden was outspoken on Hong Kong. Both men devoted many tweets to North Korea, with Trump touting diplomatic progress and Biden dismissive of the President’s summit diplomacy. Given Trump’s frequent use of Twitter and willingness to conduct diplomacy by tweet, it shouldn’t be surprising that he tweeted about 16 Indo-Pacific countries and regions in total compared to Biden’s 11.
Military and trade first, or climate change and democracy? This visualization captures the number of Twitter references to 15 key terms by US President Donald Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden: Alliance, Authoritarian, Climate Change, Cooperation, Democracy, Human Rights, Immigration, Liberal International Order, Military, Multilateralism, South China Sea, Technology, TPP, Trade and Values.