China says US facing ‘internal collapse’ after pro-Trump riot

The assault on the US Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump reflects a failure of leadership, as well as the deep divide running through American society, editorials in China’s state media said on Friday.

Hundreds of supporters of President Trump besieged the Capitol on Wednesday in what House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi described as “an armed insurrection against America”.

The Global Times, a tabloid run by the People’s Daily, the newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, described the riots as a sign of “internal collapse” that could not easily be reversed.

“The unprecedented mob in the Capitol, a symbol of the US system, is the result of the US society’s severe division and the country’s failure to control such division,” it said.

“As time goes by and with abuses of resources by generations of politicians, the US political system has degraded,” the paper said, adding that such politicians “deserve chaos, violence”.

It also lashed out at what it described as “double standards” among US politicians who expressed support for pro-democracy protesters, who forced their way into the territory’s Legislative Council in 2019.

“In Hong Kong, violent actions are described as a ‘beautiful sight,’ in the US, people involved in this chaos are called ‘mobs’,” it said.

False equivalence

The Hong Kong protesters, amid mass rallies against a proposed extradition law with mainland China that evolved into calls for universal suffrage, broke through police barricades and vandalised the legislative chamber.

Hong Kong media pushed back on the comparison between the two events, saying Hong Kong protesters were fighting for more freedom at the ballot box, while the pro-Trump supporters were staging a “violent insurrection” to undermine their country’s free and fair elections.

Related News

China Today Wiki

Popular News by Topics