SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump reflects a failure of leadership as well as the deep divide running through American society, editorials in China’s state media said on Friday.
Hundreds of supporters of President Trump besieged the Capitol on Wednesday in what House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi described as “an armed insurrection against America”.
The Global Times, a tabloid run by the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party newspaper, described the riots as a sign of “internal collapse” in the U.S. political system that could not easily be reversed.
“The unprecedented mob in the Capitol, a symbol of the U.S. system, is the result of the U.S. society’s severe division and the country’s failure to control such division,” it said.
“As time goes by and with abuses of resources by generations of politicians, the U.S. political system has degraded,” the paper added.
It also lashed out at what it described as “double standards” among U.S. politicians.
“In Hong Kong, violent actions are described as a ‘beautiful sight,’ in the U.S., people involved in this chaos are called ‘mobs’,” it said.
The official China Daily newspaper said the “narrow nationalism” of President Trump had taken a toll on the United States.
“If the Biden administration can draw lessons from the ‘darkest day’ in U.S. history, the pain the country experienced these days may come to be viewed as growing pains,” it said.
“The violence and chaos that have erupted in the U.S. over the past year show what happens when a country’s leaders lose touch with reality,” it added.
(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
