China's State Media Predicts 'Fall of U.S. Political System' in Election Coverage
'The decline of U.S. politics in 2020 is destined to be recorded in history'
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Chinese media gave a grim assessment of Election Day in the US, claiming the sign of “rapid U.S. political decay and decline" was outlined in the contest between incumbent President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The decline of U.S. politics in 2020 is destined to be recorded in history,” wrote China’s state-run Global Times.
The outlet cited gun and ammunition purchases as evidence that a civil war is brewing.
The decay is first manifested by the embarrassing situation: Effective governance in the US is relatively or absolutely insufficient. The government’s responsibility – to provide society with the necessary public goods to cope with the impact and challenge of a crisis – is absent.
People are seeing strange and even contradictory signs. The US has the most developed medical technology and system that can “cure” a 74-year-old white elderly man (US President Donald Trump), infected with the novel coronavirus, in just three days. Yet this same country – with about 4 percent of the world’s population – contributes to more than 20 percent of the world’s COVID-19 mortality.
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This kind of comparison marks the decline of the US government’s capabilities. In the face of the public crisis caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic, the US government can hardly take any effective measures to counter and control the disease. For the US, which has always regarded itself as the only superpower after the end of the Cold War, the leader of the international system, and the defender of the Western free world, this is clearly a shock to its system.
The CCP editorial repeatedly mentioned historian Francis Fukuyama, referencing his book Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy.
Fukuyama criticized Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which is a major talking point for communist China.
The Global Times cited Fukuyama's recent comments describing Trump as some bizarre historical aberration, a “negative influence that exceeds the system’s threshold to function” and produced “systemic paralysis."
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Meanwhile, Chinese citizens heavily censored social media platforms that seems to bury any mention of the US election.
The Global Times quoted “Chinese experts” who glorified China’s economy after the coronavirus.
They disregarded the US elections a just "a show."
Another global Times editorial speculated if “local or larger-scale riots” might break out because of the election, building on their " sign of decay" narrative.
This situation reflects the trend of political fanaticism in the US. In the past, only the election outcome, not the election itself, was uncertain.
This had been a political and moral high ground for the US as a developed Western country.
Americans used to believe that only developing countries would witness serious disputes over their election process, and there might be even riots, with the losing side refusing to accept the outcome.
They are not supposed to bother with the same uneasiness as a member of the top country in the West.The US has, to some extent, degraded. This is the conclusion.
In recent years, the US has ignored the rules of the international community. Everything has been oriented toward maximizing American interests. Egoism has flooded both internally and externally.
The US domestic political arena also has a tendency to take sides.
Lies dominate, the original bottom line of value has been breached, and the end justifies the means. These assumptions have become real problems “all of a sudden.”
