Chinese regime media outlets limited their English-language commentary on the American presidential election on Tuesday, choosing instead to describe the choice between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump as having limited impact on what Beijing described as a divided, violent, and declining America.
China is a totalitarian communist country in which the Communist Party controls all aspects of both government and the daily lives of citizens. Its state media outlets regularly publish propaganda condemning the concept of elections and republican governance, insisting elections “cannot truly reflect the essence of democracy” without a tyrant overseeing all aspects of the state. State media has disparaged America, in particular, as a “low-quality democracy” bringing “chaos” to the world through elections that feature more than one political party and candidates with authentic policy differences.
In anticipation of Tuesday’s vote, the state-run China Daily newspaper published a political cartoon depicting a donkey and an elephant – the classic mascots of the Democrat and Republican parties, respectively – arguing while floating on lifesavers, while the Statue of Liberty drowns in the background. The message appeared to be that the two parties hate each other more than they love their country.
The newspaper also published a seemingly innocuous video describing how America is preparing for Election Day, but derisively referring to the election as potentially “the most expensive in history” and suggesting a significant chance of violence on Tuesday.
“Tight security measures are on the way in many parts of the United States, with some states calling up the National Guard and parts of Arizona even considering deploying snipers,” the propaganda outlet claimed, concluding that Americans are too “divided” and “too many Americans see their fellow citizens as irredeemable.”
An article claiming to analyze the issues in the American election in the state news agency Xinhua trashed both Republicans and Democrats, suggesting that neither party can address Americans’ top issues.
“Both Democrats and Republicans seem unable or unwilling to pursue substantial healthcare reform,” the article claimed. It again claimed that “violent crime” was a pervasive, nationwide problem. The article also criticized the United States for having open political debates around abortion.
“With the debate over ‘life’ [sic] now being completely partisan, abortion rights have been transformed into a political symbol, further widening the divisions splitting American society,” Xinhua claimed.
China allows the killing of unborn children during all steps of a woman’s pregnancy and has one of the world’s highest abortion rates. The Communist Party actively promoted the killing of unborn children for decades and, as part of its “one-child policy,” forcibly killed the children of women who became pregnant “illegally.” The Chinese government boasts that its policy “prevented” 400 million people from living. The “one-child policy” has led to a dramatic collapse in the nation’s fertility rate that the Communist Party has tried, unsuccessfully, to reverse by expanding the mandate to three children per mother.
Xinhua published another analysis of the election that appeared to be an attempt at comedy, declaring that the election is “like a Thanksgiving dinner where no one agrees on the turkey.”
“Both sides saying the same thing: if the other side wins, America is doomed,” the comic anchors claim, ominously predicting, “the cracks in America are only getting deeper.”
In a more sober reflection on the election, columnist Kang Bing at the state-run China Daily lamented that Americans were now more aware of communist China’s rampant intellectual property theft, espionage, imperialism, and other nefarious activity.
“I feel Americans are becoming less and less confident. Why else are the presidential candidates cursing each other in public using expletives?” Kang asked. “Also, there’s hardly been any improvement in public facilities, and people’s livelihoods and living standards over the past 40 years.”
The writer claimed that, in contrast, China – which is currently engaging in genocide against multiple ethnic minorities and regularly imprisons people of faith, political dissidents, and other citizens deemed inconvenient to the regime – had “grown by leaps and bounds.”
Kang also claimed, despite the extensive coverage of the American election in state media, that government propaganda in China was “largely quiet on the US presidential election.”
“Chinese media are worried about China being accused of interfering in the US presidential election,” he alleged. Kang omitted from his article extensive evidence of the Chinese Communist Party attempting to interfere in American politics, including promoting divisive and violent political narratives. In December 2023, for example, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declassified a report full of evidence that China was using outlets such as the Tiktok social media app to promote “divisive” content, including content undermining trust in American elections. In his 2024 book Blood Money, Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer detailed the extensive ties the Chinese regime keeps with several radical leftist agitator groups that played a significant role in left-wing riots responding to instances of alleged police brutality nationwide. Chinese regime-linked billionaires have also bankrolled radical groups promoting transgender ideology and anti-“capitalist” propaganda.
