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Fan Chen

Beijing has sharply dismissed President Donald Trump’s allegations of Chinese interference in US elections, mirroring its strong reaction to similar accusations he has made over the years.
The allegations were “entirely fabricated, maliciously slanderous and have long been proven completely groundless”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Friday.
It followed a prime-time national address by Trump on Thursday, when he accused Beijing of carrying out the “largest compromise of election data in history” and influencing American business leaders and journalists to “turn against” him.
Trump also alleged that China had paid US journalists to write negative articles about his administration during his first term as president.
Lin reiterated China’s principle of non-interference, stating that the country had no interest in meddling in US domestic affairs and had never done so.
“On the contrary, the international community sees all too clearly who routinely interferes in the internal affairs of other nations, conducts long-term, indiscriminate surveillance of governments, businesses and ordinary citizens worldwide, and steals the data of other countries’ citizens on a massive scale,” the spokesman said.


The foreign ministry also urged Washington to reflect on its own actions, cease its “baseless smearing” of China and act in a manner more conducive to bilateral relations.
The Chinese embassy in Washington likewise dismissed the claim.
“The US election is an internal matter of the US. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US,” embassy spokesman Liu Chang said in a statement.
Trump’s speech, coming two months after his mid-May meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, could cast a cloud over Xi’s planned visit to Washington in September.
This is not the first time Trump has accused China of meddling in a US election.
In 2018, he told a UN Security Council meeting that Beijing did not want the Republican Party to do well that year’s midterm elections because he was “the first president ever to challenge China on trade”.
“Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” he said, without offering any evidence.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – who was in the same room when Trump made his remarks – immediately gave a rebuttal, saying China “did not and will not interfere in any country’s domestic affairs”.


Soon after, the Chinese foreign ministry urged the US to stop making “groundless accusations” against China and cease actions and rhetoric that harmed bilateral relations.
“The international community also knows who is so used to frequently interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs,” then ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.
Trump repeated his claim in May 2020, telling Reuters that he believed China “will do anything they can to have me lose this race”.
He said Beijing wanted his opponent, Joe Biden, to win the presidential election, to ease the pressure Trump had placed on China over trade and other issues.
Geng gave a brief response to the claim following that interview.
“We have stated repeatedly that the US election is an internal affair of the US, and China has no interest in interfering. At the same time, we also hope that US domestic politics will not make an issue out of China.”


A few months after the 2020 presidential election, which Biden won, US intelligence agencies released findings that contradicted Trump’s allegations.
A March 2021 assessment by the US National Intelligence Council concluded that China had not interfered in the election and, despite considering it, had not deployed a covert influence campaign.
The report drew a distinction between election influence and interference, with the former referring to attempts to sway voter sentiment, such as by promoting specific candidates, spreading disinformation or sowing distrust.
Election interference involved the direct manipulation of voting infrastructure, including ballot casting, voter registration and vote counting, the report said.
Additional reporting by Nayan Seth


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The US president has been making similar accusations for years, claiming China wanted him to lose against his Democratic rivals


The US president has been making similar accusations for years, claiming China wanted him to lose against his Democratic rivals.


United States

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

Wang Yi

China rejects Trump’s election meddling claims as ‘fabricated’ and ‘slanderous’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The US president has been making similar accusations for years, claiming China wanted him to lose against his Democratic rivals

The US president has been making similar accusations for years, claiming China wanted him to lose against his Democratic rivals