WHEN Hillary Clinton officially announced her decision to run for president last year, Chinese social media blew up with thousands of comments. Most of them were not kind.

“Hate her! I’ve long been very disgusted with her,” wrote one user.

“Female version of Hitler,” said another.

Another predicted she would be responsible for World War III.

There were scathing remarks on everything from her foreign policy to her age, gender and physical appearance.

China’s mainstream media has not been much kinder. The Global Times, a state-owned Chinese newspaper known for its nationalist views, has dubbed her the “most hated American politician”.

Earlier this year, the newspaper conducted an online poll which found 54 per cent of Chinese citizens would vote for a Donald Trump presidency.

Xinhua, the country’s state-owned news agency, criticised her for having a “distinct personality” and for her age.

The latest Real Clear Politics polling average puts the margin at six points across the country, and the latest polls show her ahead in a slew of must-win states for Trump.

If Hillary Clinton does indeed win the election, many people in China are not going to be pleased.

CHINA’S PROBLEM WITH CLINTON

Handling the rise of China will be one of the biggest challenges to face America’s next president.

On one hand, Clinton is known for her tough stance against China. She has previously publicly condemned the country’s record on human rights, its political system and internet censorship. She’s also accused the country of hacking US computers and stealing commercial secrets and government information.

Over the weekend, fresh emails purportedly from her campaign leaked by Wikileaks revealed she told bankers three years ago that the United States had warned Beijing it would “ring China with missile defence”, unless it did more to stop North Korea.

According to a hacked campaign document, her message to China in 2013 had been, “You either control them, or we’re going to have to defend against them”.

But it’s her hawkish views on ownership of the South China Sea that have struck a particularly strong chord in China.

In 2010, as Secretary of State, Clinton outraged Beijing after pushing the South China Sea to the top of the regional and US security agendas.

She’s also expressed a desire for more US intervention in the disputed South China Sea region.

According to a leaked speech to Goldman Sachs in October 2013, Clinton told the audience that China “basically wants to control” the entire South China Sea.

“You can’t hold that against them,” she reportedly said. “They have the right to assert themselves. But if nobody’s there to push back to create a balance, then they’re going to have a chokehold on the sea lanes and also on the countries that border the South China Sea.”

But, if the emails are authentic, she also attempted to argue that the United States had as much claim to the disputed region as China did, even going as far as to label it the “American Sea”.

“I made the point at one point in the argument that, you know, you can call it whatever you want to call it. You don’t have a claim to all of it. I said, by that argument, you know, the United States should claim all of the Pacific. We liberated it, we defended it.

“We have as much claim to all of the Pacific. And we could call it the American Sea, and it could go from the West Coast of California all the way to the Philippines. And, you know, my counterpart sat up very straight and goes, well, you can’t do that. And I said, well, we have as much right to claim that as you do,” she continued, according to the text. “I mean, you claim it based on pottery shards from, you know, some fishing vessel that ran aground in an atoll somewhere. You know, we had conveys of military strength. We discovered Japan for heaven’s sake.”

The Clinton campaign has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the emails.

Experts have warned a Clinton presidency could make things problematic for the Australia, as we may face increasing pressure to side with the US against Beijing.

WHY IS TRUMP CONSIDERED A BETTER ALTERNATIVE?

Trump’s foreign policy position on China is far less clear, and as far as some of the country is concerned, that’s actually a good thing.

It’s actually not at all known how familiar Trump even is with the country. While he claims to have made “billions of dollars dealing with China”, he has no known significant investments in the region.

His vow to dismantle the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been received well in China, for the country had been excluded from the international agreement.

In May, China’s official Xinhua news agency noted Trump’s more isolationist campaign compared to Clinton’s, who it described as an “old foreign policy hand” and important backer of the Asia-Pacific “pivot” that China considers a threat.

“As far as she’s concerned, being tough on foreign policy is perhaps the best way to show America’s so called ‘leadership’,” it said in a commentary.

In a brief op-ed for The Global Times earlier this year, Renmin University of China academic Wang Yiwei said the Chinese “regard Trump as a clown, funny and unscrupulous.”

He went on to say: “I think Trump as US president will be good for the Sino-US relations. Trump sticks to isolationism when it comes to foreign policy. He doesn’t want the US to bear so many global responsibilities. In contrast, Clinton initiated the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy which is aimed at containing China.”

That’s not to suggest China is offering Trump a glowing endorsement. Rather, it’s a case of the “lesser of two evils”.

Earlier this year, Trump invoked outrage with his blunt remarks about the country.

During a May rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Republican billionaire made global headlines after he accused China of “raping” the United States.

“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” he said, referring to China’s relatively high number of exports.

“We’re going to turn it around. And we have the cards, don’t forget it. We’re like the piggy bank that’s being robbed. We have the cards. We have a lot of power with China.”

He also sparked controversy after claiming he would slap a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese products.