Hillary Clinton: A tale of thwarted ambition ‘China wants stable relations with US’
FRUSTRATING END Twicefailed presidential hopeful concedes defeat to Trump, holding back tears
Hillary Clinton conceded the White House race to Donald Trump on Wednesday and offered to work with the president-elect, saying fellow Democrats should give him the chance to lead a deeply divided US.
“Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country,” she told supporters, holding back tears in her first public remarks since the Republican’s upset victory. “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”
Standing before a crowd of crestfallen but cheering supporters, Clinton said the nation proved to be “more divided than we thought” but urged unity and told her supporters: “Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”
“This is painful and it will be for a long time,” the 69-year-old former first lady and secretary of state told hundreds of supporters and staff at a Manhattan hotel. “This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we shared and the vision we hold for our country.”
With husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton standing beside her on stage as she delivered what are expected to be her final remarks of the presidential race, she said, “But I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love and about building an America that’s hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted.”
In the coming four years, Americans will feel shameful when they see or talk about the president
Clinton’s journey from the White House to being humiliated in her second bid for the presidency by Trump will cause her to go down in history as a woman of frustrated ambitions.
After her husband Bill Clinton was elected to the White House in 1992, Clintonraisedeyebrowsby becoming a key adviser to her husband, and set up an office in the West Wing of the White House, reserved for the president himself and his closest aides.
She dazzled official Washington when she undertook a reform of the US health care system. She knew the material well and impressed members of Congress.
But as the months wore on, the reform deadlocked, and critics of Clinton dismissed her as inflexible and abrupt. It was her first major political defeat.
Clinton’s popularity peaked in late 1998 when she was humiliated with the disclosure of her husband’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
It would be the last time the American people sympathised with her.
Clinton long wanted to get into politics on her own merits. In 1990, she commissioned polls to explore the idea of succeeding her husband. The results were negative, and this hurt her.
She sought redemption in 2000 when Bill Clinton left the White House: she won a seat in the Senate representing the state of New York. Clinton worked hard and impressed people as diligent and well prepared. But her unpopularity returned.
In 2002, Clinton voted in favour of the US invading Iraq. A young Senate colleague named Barack Obama saw his chance, running in the Democratic primaries of 2008 with a message of change and relegating his rival to the ranks of establishment politicians.
In naming her secretary of state in 2009, Obama resurrected Clinton and consolidated her image as a stateswoman.
But Clinton made the mistake at the state department by ignoring rules on the handling of communications. This mushroomed into a scandal. She also sought to dispel her image as a fiercely private person and bring out her warm and caring side to American people. But it was in vain as voters on Tuesday closed the book on Clinton. AGENCIES
China’s Twitter-like Weibo platforms exploded on Wednesday over Donald Trump’s win in the US election, with millions of users sharing stories and commenting on America’s choice for its 45th president.
Compared to the colourful, if often snide, comments on Trump’s victory and the pitfalls of democracy on Weibo, China’s first official comment on the result was staid.
China’s foreign ministry said it expected to make joint efforts with the new US government to maintain sustained, healthy and stable growth of bilateral relations, and benefit people of the two countries and the world.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks at a routine news briefing on Wednesday around the time when Trump was delivering his victory speech. “We are closely following the final result of the US election,” Lu said.
By late afternoon on Wednesday, Trump’s victory had become the top trending news on Weibo platforms under the title “Trump won”. News about the counting of votes was the most searched item on Weibo.
By the time Trump was declared the winner, his name had been searched more than 1.74 million times, and the count continued to rise rapidly.
Many comments were wry and took digs at democracy.
“In the coming four years, Americans will feel shameful when they see or talk about the president” - this comment by user Joe Wong was among the top in the “picked list” of comments on Weibo, with more than 2400 users commenting on it.
Another comment by Zhang Zhaozhong, a retired People’s Navy admiral, was circulated by many users. “No matter who wins, the new president will lead America from the peak to the slump,” Zhang said.
Many users called the victory “unexpected and amazing”. Some users posted funny videos of the election by changing the lyrics of patriotic Chinese songs. “Thank god, we don’t use the referendum system in China or our president would Li Yifeng or Wu Yifan (both teen entertainment idols),” was another popular comment.