The Chinese Foreign Ministry effusively condemned President Donald Trump on Friday, demanding during its daily briefing that the American government “stop vilifying China” after the president published declassified intelligence documents on Thursday night indicating that Beijing was attempting to alter the results of American elections.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, President Trump announced that the White House would publish a trove of intelligence documents about the integrity of American elections, many of them referring to threats from the Communist Party of China. Some of the documents published feature intelligence officials stating they had reason to believe that the Chinese government was attempting, prior to the 2020 presidential election, to “leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president” to ensure his loss in that election or resignation prior to that.
The documents, now available on the White House website, also addressed the suspected acquisition by the Chinese communist regime of extensive files of voter intelligence, potentially affecting as many as 220 million Americans. The documents did not include any proof that the Chinese government actively swayed the results of the 2020 election or any other election in the United States, but rather identified vulnerabilities in America’s election system that could be exploited by nefarious foreign actors.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected the entirety of the president’s speech and the contents of the documents as “false” on Friday.
“This is a false allegation and serious smear that has long been proved to be unfounded. China adheres to non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters during his briefing. “We never interfere in U.S. elections and have zero interest in that.”
Lin went on to accuse the United States of having “wantonly interfered in other countries’ internal affairs, long conducted indiscriminate surveillance on governments, businesses, and the general public worldwide, and snatched massive data of foreign citizens.” He then demanded that Washington change its actions.
“We urge the U.S. to reflect on its behavior, stop vilifying China and framing China for election purpose, and act in ways conducive to China-U.S. relations,” his statement concluded.
Genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is expected to visit the United States in September, following President Trump’s visit to Beijing in May. Asked if the revelations would affect that timeline, Lin did not answer the question, instead reiterating, “We urge the U.S. to stop framing China for election purpose and act in ways conducive to China-U.S. relations.”
Lin’s remarks were slightly more forceful than the Chinese embassy in Washington’s initial response on Thursday night, as shared by CBS News.
“China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in others’ internal affairs,” the statement reportedly read. “The U.S. election is an internal matter of the U.S. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.”
The Chinese government also appeared to attempt to dissipate the impact of the president’s speech using its regime-controlled social media outlets. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported sentiments of “mockery, scepticism, and concern” on Weibo, the largest communist-controlled micro-blogging platform, which the regime uses to create the illusion of a “peanut gallery” sharing public sentiment. Posts accusing Trump of “scapegoating” China were prevalent, as was the sharing of Russian propaganda interpretations of Trump’s speech. Other comments shared the Chinese government talking point that the United States is in a state of “internal chaos” — to contrast with the “harmony” of totalitarian communism, and “their internal chaos being blamed on us.”
President Trump warned in his remarks on Thursday night that the American election system was vulnerable to a variety of threats, citing intelligence officials, and accused “deep state” actors of attempting to downplay the threat or keep it away from the eyes of the White House. He specifically accused the Chinese Communist Party of sabotaging his election prospects in 2020, when he lost to former President Joe Biden.
“They did not want and they just didn’t want it, they fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump to win,” he said, stating that CIA documents recorded that China would “leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes and make him resign or lose the election.”
The documents published on Thursday night include a CIA assessment stating that “in mid 2018, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes and make him resign or prevent his re-election.”
The documents also revealed that China allegedly compromised the data of voters in 18 states, as many 220 million files. It is unclear if those files represent 220 distinct American citizens or include some overlap. President Trump described the situation as “the largest compromise of election data in history.”