The Chinese government propaganda newspaper Global Times on Thursday compared the ongoing procedure to select a speaker of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, accusing the “electoralization” of choosing party leadership of causing chaos.
The lower chamber of Congress has spent the week without a leader; Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), presumed to be the next speaker after Republicans secured control of the House via November’s midterm elections, lost six consecutive votes as a result of a group of about 20 Republicans refusing to support him. The House is expected to reconvene on Thursday afternoon to debate and hold at least one more vote for the position.
The situation is the first of its kind – the House not choosing a speaker through one vote – since 1923.
The defecting group of Republicans blocking McCarthy has opened the potential for Democrats, the minority in the House, to organize an attempt to insert one of their members or a “coalition” candidate into the speakership. While unlikely, the possibility has resulted in much deliberation between both parties and some alarm among McCarthy’s supporters. Democrats have repeatedly voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a lawmaker with an extensive history of questioning the integrity of American elections, opposite McCarthy for House speaker.
The Global Times, in two separate articles, attempted to simultaneously make the case that not immediately electing McCarthy was a sign of the collapse of American civilization and that McCarthy is a “crazy,” unethical politician who has no business in a leadership position.
In an article published Thursday, the Times called the speaker elections “a political thriller with huge destructiveness, and a wide-ranging and far-reaching impact,” comparing the vote to the January 6 riot by self-proclaimed supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Voting on speaker of the House, the Chinese outlet claimed, was akin to rioting.
“During Capitol riots, American rioters shocked the building from the outside. This time, the stalemate was the result of conflicts from inside the Capitol,” the Global Times proclaimed. “The two events are chaotic phenomena of spread and aggravation of the disease of US political system.”
No incidents of violence inside the House of Representatives during the speakership debate have been recorded at press time.
The Times lamented that the situation in Congress was the result of “electoralization” – that is to say, the distribution of power through voting to more people than a handful of elites – and claimed Washington was poisoning international politics.
“The US House of Representatives will continue to vote on Wednesday, but to some extent the result is no longer important,” the article asserted, blaming “the electoralization of political party functions, the frequent emergence of extreme issues, and the rise of veto politics.”
The impact “has spilled over from the US to many countries and international institutions, causing widespread concerns and seriously hindering international cooperation.”
The Global Times emphasized, however, that its opposition to allowing lawmakers a say in who leads them translated into positive feelings for McCarthy. The newspaper attacked the Republican leader for opposing the pro-Communist Party Paris climate agreement and claimed he was guilty of “crazy anti-China remarks,” without elaborating.
In a separate article, the Global Times, citing communist regime-approved “experts,” proclaimed the full decline of the American political system as a result of lawmakers conducting their constitutional duties appropriately.
“The US political system has declined and its political ecology has deteriorated. It’s unable to react to the real demands of Americans,” one alleged Chinese “expert” concluded.
The state newspaper also took the opportunity to insult McCarthy again as “a consummate political operative without any ethics.”
The animosity towards McCarthy appears to be a direct response to his policy proposals, particularly his call for the creation of a “Select Committee on China” that would, among other priorities, work to hold China responsible for the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic began in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 as a localized outbreak of a novel coronavirus and developed into a pandemic as a result of the Communist Party hosting superspreader events, hiding pivotal information on the disease from the world, and other malfeasance.
China is a totalitarian communist state that outlaws the development of rival parties to the Communist Party. Its equivalent event to name leadership within its lawmaking and executive organizations is the Communist Party Congress, which occurs every five years. In the past, the Party Congress was used to elect a president out of several options and name members of the Politburo, the elite panel that controls the country, but under current dictator Xi Jinping, the Party Congress has become a coronation event for Xi, who has not developed any potential successors and purged all potential rivals.
During the last Communist Party Congress, in October, Xi used the occasion to fill the Politburo with loyalists to substitute veteran members with fewer loyalties to Xi, who retired due to age. The latest Congress also featured the bizarre spectacle of security officials abruptly manhandling and expelling former President Hu Jintao, 79, on camera. Hu was sitting next to Xi Jinping when two security officials suddenly grabbed him by the elbows and dragged him out as Hu clearly pleaded with Xi to intervene, to no avail.
Hu disappeared from the public eye and has not been seen in public since October. Shortly after the incident, Chinese state media issued a vague statement claiming Hu was “not feeling well,” without elaborating.
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