I know what you are thinking, encouraged perhaps by the fuzzy headline, but this isn't about the government in Beijing.

The column is based on responses of common Chinese to the ongoing primaries in the United States, a process that is scheduled to culminate in a presidential vote on Nov 8.

I recently asked a few acquaintances in Beijing and Shanghai, aged between 19 and 39, what they thought of presidential front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I also wanted to bring Bernard Sanders into our conversations but found most knew less about him.