Thursday, January 07, 2021
"No democratic standards"
Moscow and Beijing mock the US
Internationally, there is great horror at the rampage among Trump supporters in the US Capitol. Russia and China also sympathize with the United States. The sincerity of the statements can be doubted.
The United States’s two greatest geopolitical opponents have mocked the attack by a right-wing mob on the Washington Capitol. From the Russian capital Moscow it was said that the incidents were an internal American matter. "Nonetheless, we are again paying attention to the fact that the US electoral system is archaic and does not meet today's democratic standards," said Maria Sakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Interfax agency. That leaves room for "numerous violations". The Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing drew parallels with the democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Dozens of supporters of the elected US President Donald Trump broke into parliament on Wednesday to prevent the ratification of the November 3 election result. Trump had previously reiterated his baseless fraud allegations and called on his supporters to move to the Capitol. Both chambers of congress had to abruptly interrupt their sessions and the halls of parliament were cleared. After many hours of delay, the victory of Democrat Joe Biden was finally confirmed.
Russia wishes the American people "to survive this dramatic moment in their own history with dignity," said spokeswoman Sakharova. President Vladimir Putin did not comment on the attack on the Capitol when he spoke briefly to journalists after a Christmas service in Russia.
Inconsistent comparisons with Hong Kong
The Chinese Foreign Ministry also wished the US "peace, stability and security as soon as possible." Comparisons were made with the protests in Hong Kong. Similar protests in the former British Crown Colony were even "more violent", but there were no deaths there, said a spokeswoman. According to police, four people died and 52 were arrested in the storm on the Capitol. In the US and internationally, the incidents were often criticized as an attack on democracy.
The protests in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were directed against the state's restrictions on freedoms. The focus was on the controversial Chinese security law for Hong Kong. This is a radical break in the autonomy of the financial metropolis, which it was promised for at least 50 years when it was handed over to China in 1997 on the principle of "one country – two systems". It provides life imprisonment as the maximum sentence for numerous offenses that the Chinese authorities see as subversion, secession and terrorism.
Relations between the US and China – the two economically most important countries in the world – have deteriorated significantly in recent years. Chinese state media regularly report on chaos and violence in the United States.
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