China refuses to acknowledge Biden’s win

BEIJING: China declined yesterday to congratulate Joe Biden as the winner of the United States presidential election, saying the outcome of the vote was still to be determined.

While i ncumbent Donald Trump has yet to concede and has launched several legal challenges, many world leaders congratulated Biden and running mate Kamala Harris after the Democrats were declared winners at the weekend and spontaneous celebrations erupted across American cities.

Trump’s four years in the White House have been marked by a trade war and increasingly icy relations with China, with the two powers sparring over areas from blame for the Covid-19 pandemic to Beijing’s human rights record in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

China, among a handful of major countries, including Russia and Mexico, that has not congratulated the president-elect, said yesterday it had “noticed that Mr Biden declared he is the winner of the election”.

“Our understanding is that the outcome of the election will be determined in accordance with US laws and procedures,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

After declining to acknowledge Biden’s victory despite repeated questions from reporters, Wang said: “We hope the new US government can meet China halfway.”

Russia’s elections chief said yesterday that voting by mail in the US presidential election had paved the way for massive voter fraud, echoing rhetoric from the campaign of Donald Trump.

Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s elections commission, said she had carefully studied mail-in voting in the US and found the process vulnerable to fraud.

“For me, the conclusion is clear: this anachronism in its American form leaves massive scope for possible falsifications.”