“China, China, China, China -- China! -- China, China.” So goes a viral montage that counts the ways the Republican presidential primary front-runner name-drops the country he says is a thorn in America’s side.

Increasingly, China is returning the attention.

After simmering for several months, Chinese interest in the Republican presidential primary front-runner has built into a rolling boil. Chinese media and foreign policy researchers are now grappling in earnest with the meaning of the real estate mogul’s accelerating candidacy, while the country’s social media users marvel at everything from the architecture of his famous golden comb-over to his apparent obsession with their country.

Guda Baihua, a blogger and well-known translator of American TV shows, is one of the people helping explain Mr. Trump to the Chinese audience. He describes the candidate as “a comedy goldmine,” but also says he doesn’t take Mr. Trump lightly. “I don’t think he’s a joke. I don’t think he’s a clown. He’s a businessman with a great eye for opportunity.”

The number of original posts about the reality TV star on China’s Twitter-like Weibo microblogging site rose to more than 300 a week in February, up from less than 30 in June when he declared his candidacy, according to data from WeiboScope, a Weibo-tracking project run out of the University of Hong Kong.

The participation of Mr. Trump has also led Chinese people to pay far more attention to the U.S. primary than usual. The hashtag #超级星期二, or #SuperTuesday, has attracted in excess of 5,400 comments and 12.8 million clicks on Weibo.

Guda Baihua has delighted his legion of followers with multiple translations of Trump-related content over the election cycle, including a recent mashup of quotations from Mr. Trump with scenes from the HBO drama “Game of Thrones.” His most popular post, though, remains a link to the video of Mr. Trump saying “China” over and over.

“Everyone looked at it and thought, ‘What ​is he doing?’” the blogger, whose real name is Chen Chunge​, said of the video, which has been reposted more than 18,300 times since September. “It was magical.”

Many in China are accustomed to hearing U.S. presidential candidates criticize their country, but few have done so with as much volume or variety as Mr. Trump. He has said he both respects and loves China and Chinese people. He has also promised to label China a currency manipulator and slap a 45% import tax on Chinese goods. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump said as president he might serve China with cease-and-desist letters, similar to one he sent to the campaign of rival GOP candidate Ted Cruz in response to an attack ad, to tell the world’s most populous country “to stop ripping us off.”

The barrage has left many in China’s media and foreign policy establishments scratching their heads as they contemplate what a Trump presidency might mean for a bilateral relationship widely considered the most important in the world.

"​What's going on? Could Trump's feelings toward China be more tangled or his logic more deranged? He says he loves the wealth China has brought to the U.S. while also saying China 'raped' the U.S.," the Global Times, a tabloid published by the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily, said in a story summarizing the China policies of U.S. presidential candidates last month.

Many of the most popular comments on Weibo express a half-serious hope that Mr. Trump will win the presidency and hasten the demise of the U.S.

“Trump winning the U.S. presidency is to China’s benefit,” Yu Zhiguo, a film industry public relations executive, wrote in one such comment. “So from this day on, China’s government needs to keep this in mind. Don’t say things that might hurt Trump. Don’t do things that might hurt Trump. Definitely don’t use this as an opportunity to mock or attack American democracy.”

Such jokes are rooted in a certain reality, though Mr. Trump’s lack of a track record made it difficult to say whether hopes of future American decline were misplaced, said Shi Yinhong, an expert on U.S.-China relations at Beijing's Renmin University.

"Chinese people aren't afraid of a hardline U.S. president. They're afraid of a smart U.S. president. But can you guarantee he'll continue to be an idiot once he's in office? It's hard to say," he said.

Multiple international relations experts speculated that China’s leaders might prefer to see Mr. Trump in the White House over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who as Secretary of State helped lead a refocusing of American power in Asia that Beijing found threatening. The reason: as a businessman, Mr. Trump would likely be more open to compromise.

“You know what he wants. He’s interest-driven so it’s easier to negotiate with him,” said Jin Canrong, another international relations scholar at Renmin University.

China’s government has refrained from commenting on Mr. Trump’s candidacy, citing a policy of non-interference. “ We don’t meddle in others' domestic affairs so we have no comments on any particular person,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing in Beijing last week in response to questions about Mr. Trump’s recent win in the Nevada primary. “We want good relations.”

Guda Baihua said the biggest worry his friends have about a Trump presidency are the candidate’s potentially draconian immigration policies, which could hurt their chances of going to the U.S. to study or work. “He’s already said he’d be tougher on Hispanics. After them, who’s next in line?,” said the blogger. “Between immigrating, studying abroad and so on, every year it’s a lot of people.”

--Josh Chin. Follow him on Twitter @joshchin.