US presidential election: China finally congratulates Biden on being elected president

November 13, 2020

Updated one hour ago



China has finally broken its silence by congratulating Biden on his expected victory in the US presidential election.


"We respect the wishes of the American people and congratulate Biden and Kamala Harris," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement on Friday.


Relations between China and the United States are important to both countries, as well as to the rest of the world. Tensions between the two countries have risen in recent years over issues such as trade, espionage and the global epidemic.


Russia has not yet congratulated Biden.


Four years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first to congratulate Donald Trump on his election victory. However, Biden did not receive any tweets, telegrams or phone calls from them this time.


"We believe that the right decision at this juncture is to wait for the official results of the election," Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.


Simply put, Chinese leaders, especially the country's powerful President Xi Jinping, have acknowledged that they hope Biden will be the new US president in January.


Until now, the Chinese government has been waiting, and so far it has only said, "We know that Biden has been declared the winner."


Russian President Vladimir Putin


Four years ago, Putin was one of the first leaders to congratulate Donald Trump on his election victory.


This time there was no tweet, telegram or phone call for Biden. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the delay was due to Trump legally challenging the results in some states.


"We think the right thing to do is to announce the official results," he told reporters.


However, according to a BBC correspondent in Moscow, the reason for the lack of congratulations may be that Moscow is not too enthusiastic about the results.


In fact, Biden is an outspoken critic of Moscow and, more recently, has called Russia the biggest threat to the United States.


In contrast, Trump has been less critical of Russia and has been accused of interfering in the 2016 election in order to win it.