China’s state-run Global Times on Monday milked the indictment of former President Donald Trump for every drop of political advantage it could get, portraying the legal and political drama as evidence American democracy is on its deathbed and was fatally flawed from its inception.
“One problem that the earliest American lawmakers did not take into account was the possibility of elected leaders being bad people. The second problem is that they didn’t consider the possibility of the Congress failing to make an effective impeachment due to political struggles, as is happening now,” Chinese Academy of Social Sciences research fellow Lu Xiang opined, covering the “fatally flawed from inception” angle.
Video shows supporters and members of the press assembling outside the courthouse in Miami that @realDonaldTrump has been ordered to appear at Tuesday for his arraignment after being federally indicted by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice. pic.twitter.com/9MArC7WztD
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 13, 2023
“The U.S. has reached an unprecedented period when partisan struggles have risen to such a level that judicial means are being used to resolve partisan disputes. In the history of the U.S., there has never been a former president who has faced federal charges. The entire U.S. judicial system is now caught in a political vortex,” Lu said.
China is, of course, one of the world’s worst offenders for using quasi-legal purges to dispose of the dictatorship’s adversaries, including everyone from high-ranking military officials to ordinary citizens who speak out against the Communist Party.
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Current dictator Xi Jinping is fond of using his perpetual “anti-corruption” crusade to get rid of inconvenient officials. He conducted one of his biggest purges ahead of the Chinese Communist Party Congress last October, ensuring every important post in the titanic Chinese bureaucracy would be held by his loyal underlings.
The Global Times and its “Chinese expert” mouthpieces displayed not the slightest hint of introspection as they rooted for the Trump trial to become an American social and political cataclysm:
“The campaign will certainly turn white-hot, with personal attacks and bottomless behavior becoming common in the US campaign. The tensions between the two parties will cause an extremely complex situation,” said Zhang, noting that both parties will have to debate and respond to more controversies around the candidates themselves, which would not contribute to a healthy atmosphere for the campaign.
For voters, they naturally hope that the focus of the election campaign is on the benefits of voters, the welfare of the people, and the development of the country. However, if it turns out to be such a personalized campaign, it will clearly lead to more uncertainty regarding the election and the political stability of the US.
Some scholars from the US’ allies are also concerned about US’ political stability. Ahn Byong-jin, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, said, “This will be a barometer moment for the Americans: whether they will decline to become a political Third World nation or will reestablish themselves as a liberal democracy.”
All of this feeds into China’s argument that its brand of one-party authoritarianism is the only stable and reasonable system of government for a First World power in the 21st Century. Compelled to be honest about their own political system, Chinese editorialists might argue that at least their weaponized legal system gets its work done quickly and very quietly, and their purges are mostly painful to the officials who get purged, rather than society at large.
Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the Miami International Airport June 12, 2023 in Miami, Florida. Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court for his arraignment on charges including possession of national security documents after leaving office, obstruction, and making false statements. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Former President Trump is scheduled to appear at the U.S. courthouse in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday to face charges of mishandling classified documents.
Various groups that either support or oppose Trump have announced they will demonstrate outside the courthouse, raising the possibility of clashes that would figure prominently in Chinese state media editorials for weeks to come.