The Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Chinese state, lamented on Wednesday that the extended vote-counting process in America proved the country is “not synonymous to a stable, civilized, and consensus-based society anymore.”
The Times regularly predicts the downfall of American civilization and has referred to the United States in the past as “primitive.” Columns in the newspaper often portray Chinese-style communist totalitarianism as a superior government model to America’s free society, comparing its “harmony” — the product of criminalizing political dissent — favorably to the “chaos” of a state in which citizens can vocally disagree.
“Disputes, chaos, and the refusal of election results by certain candidates were supposed to take place in developing countries where political conditions were not stable, and definitely not in a country like the U.S.,” the Global Times claimed in its article Wednesday, not offering audiences the precedent of several heavily contested American presidential elections in the past century. “But things have changed — all these have occurred in the US, and the US is not synonymous to a stable, civilized and consensus-based society anymore.”
“What is happening during the U.S. election is something that we could have never imaged in this ‘Beacon of Freedom,'” the article continued, referring to the high volume of opinions aired publicly without fear of reprisal from the state. The Global Times lamented that democracy must be “civilized and graceful,” and America’s is not.
The newspaper also made the bizarre claim that Americans “went panic-buying” before the election, not offering any evidence of where this occurred. Some supermarkets saw an increase in purchases of basic goods like toilet paper and water, but in response to the growing number of Chinese coronavirus cases around the country, not the election.
Elsewhere in the newspaper on Thursday, an article cited Chinese “experts” who declared assertively, “social unrest or chaos cannot be avoided” in America.
“Anxiety, suspicion and civil unrest in cities across the U.S. are seemingly pushing the most powerful country in the world to chaos and turmoil, as the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, one of the most bruising races in modern times, remains unsettled a day after polls closed,” the Global Times predicted. “Chinese experts fear that the US could be plunged into a political and even constitutional crisis.”
The Global Times experts expressed particular concern that President Donald Trump may use his rights as an American citizen to file lawsuits in states where his team documents irregularities. “Trump would use any excuse to reject the result of the election, which could end up with a protracted lawsuit,” one of the experts, a professor, said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has steadfastly refused to offer any commentary on behalf of the Communist Party regarding the American presidential election, so the Party’s propaganda outlets provide the most direct window into Beijing’s take on the elections. The Global Times‘ predictions of chaos and demise echo its coverage throughout the entirety of the Trump era, however, rather than a newly-developed analysis more centered on the details of the election.
In 2018, the Global Times branded the country the “Divided States of America” and predicted that the “increasingly confident Chinese people” would overtake Washington in global political influence because Americans had the right to disagree freely on matters of policy in their country.
“The U.S. we are now interacting with is a ‘Divided States of America,’” the newspaper asserted. “Those who support Trump and those against him are deeply divided. Not only China, but other countries have also felt it is difficult to deal with the U.S.”
“From the protests against Trump, Chinese people found the schism in the U.S. is becoming increasingly serious and are questioning the reliability and universality of the Western democratic system,” it claimed.
The Global Times also blamed the United States for global “chaos” in general that year. A year later, it declared that Western democratic systems were obsolete and, soon, “all countries will need China.”
“The West’s old political and economic tools can no longer solve current problems,” the Global Times proclaimed. “For China, the key is to develop, fully open up and make friends worldwide. When globalization is eroded, we should remedy it. As the world falls into disorder, all countries, including the U.S, will need China.”
In April, shortly after lockdowns to prevent the spread of the Chinese coronavirus began to decimate the American economy, the Global Times called America a “primitive society” for not undertaking the same policies that China took in response to the virus, which included welding people shut in their homes and, multiple reports claimed, deliberately undercounting coronavirus cases.
“To put it bluntly, the U.S. is no match for China in terms of anti-epidemic organization and mobilization. The U.S. political system has been hit by the pandemic on its weak side and we were willing to show understanding for that. After all, every system has its weaknesses,” the newspaper claimed.
China is currently battling an extended outbreak in Xinjiang, its largest province and home to its extensive concentration camp system, where the communists have imprisoned at least 1 million Muslims.