US President Donald Trump
China on Friday asked Donald Trump to refrain from using the country as an “election issue” after the US president accused Beijing of “meddling” in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost while seeking re-election.“We urge the US side to reflect on its behavior, stop making groundless accusations against China, refrain from using China as an election issue, and make more efforts to promote China-US relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press conference in Beijing in response to a question about Trump’s allegations.
Asked whether Trump’s comments would affect Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans to visit the United States in September, Lin said: “We urge the United States to stop raising the China issue in its elections and do something conducive to China-US relations.”Trump’s statements came ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for next November 3, which will determine his control of Congress during the second half of his term.The US leader visited China in May – the first by a sitting US president since Trump himself traveled there in November 2017 – and held talks with Xi. After the meeting, the Chinese President said that the two sides reached important common understandings on maintaining stable economic and trade relations, expanding practical cooperation in various fields, and appropriately addressing each other’s concerns.
During his visit, Trump also invited Xi to pay a reciprocal visit to the United States, which the Chinese president accepted.Earlier, in his prime-time speech on Thursday (local time), Trump accused China of interfering in the 2020 elections. The Republican also accused Beijing of “illegally acquiring” 220 million (Rs 22 lakh) voter files containing personal information.“Beginning in 2020, China implemented what is believed to be the largest election data compromise in history, resulting in China’s illegal seizure of 220 million American voter files,” the president claimed.He added: “This data loss represents an unprecedented security nightmare for the elections. Members of the deep state… worked to suppress information about the extent of China’s malicious interference in the elections and cover it up from the president and the American people.”The Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected this claim, saying: “The American elections are an internal matter of the United States. Their results are determined by the votes of the American people.”
China has never and will never interfere in the US presidential election.”In 2020, Trump lost the presidential election to Democratic candidate Joe Biden. In November 2024, he defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after Biden decided not to run for re-election.(with PTI inputs)
