US Election: congratulations on hold as China and Russia wait for result

President Xi failed to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory despite once calling the president-elect an ‘old friend’.

Then Vice President Xi Jinping with then US Vice President Joe Biden at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, in 2011.

President Xi failed to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory despite once calling the president-elect an “old friend”.

The Chinese foreign ministry refused to acknowledge Mr Biden’s victory yesterday (Monday), saying that it would wait until all results were confirmed.

The refusal bodes ill for Chinese-American relations, which have been in tatters since President Trump began a trade war in 2018.

In February Mr Biden called Mr Xi a thug while expressing contempt over the regime’s incarceration of Uighur Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations and director of the Centre on American Studies at Renmin University, said: “Biden and his team have never made any public indication that he would be a little better than Trump when it comes to China.”

Writing in the Foreign Affairs journal in March, Mr Biden wrote: “The United States does need to get tough with China. If China has its way, it will keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property.”

In the years before China’s crackdown in Hong Kong and extended ambitions in the region, Mr Biden and the Chinese leader enjoyed a cordial personal relationship. When they were both vice-presidents, Mr Xi escorted his US counterpart from Beijing to Chengdu in 2011. A few months later Mr Biden repaid the gesture and accompanied him in Washington and Los Angeles. The two met again in 2013 in Beijing, after Mr Xi became president.

“Let me again warmly welcome you to China, my old friend,” Mr Xi, 67, said to Mr Biden, who is ten years his senior, at the time.

Mr Biden had been optimistic that China could transform itself into a freer civil society. His hopes have since been dashed.

“China represents a special challenge,” Mr Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs. “I have spent many hours with its leaders, and I understand what we are up against. The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of US allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviour and human rights violations, even as we seek to co-operate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change, non-proliferation, and global health security.”

The lack of a response contrasts sharply with heated discussions about the election on China’s social media, where the topic was the most popular last week. Chinese state media described the election as chaotic and speculated about Chinese-American relations under a new leader.

Some experts expressed optimism that Mr Biden would be more co-operative with China on climate change, global health policy and non-proliferation. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, a party-run newspaper, said: “Beijing should communicate with the Biden team and make some efforts so the tense China-US relationship would return to a state of being more predictable. Biden would keep the tough stance on China, and it cannot be excluded that the [new] government would be even tougher on human rights issues such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong.”

Russia will not congratulate Mr Biden until Mr Trump’s legal challenges have run their course, the Kremlin said. President Putin was one of the first leaders to congratulate Mr Trump in 2016. The Kremlin said it was wrong, however, to compare responses, pointing out that Hillary Clinton had been quick to concede.

The Times