The Chinese Communist party is rarely shy about highlighting America’s chaotic politics. State media and the CCP’s growing army of bots enthusiastically prowl around western social media, inserting themselves in the most difficult of debates, seeking to sow distrust. So why the relative caution about Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race?
In the run-up to Biden’s decision, Chinese media was full of reports on the near-assassination of Donald Trump and on Biden’s mounting political troubles, but less happy about calls for the President to withdraw. According to the China Digital Times, which monitors Chinese media, censors stepped in and removed a widely shared essay titled ‘Switch Candidates. Biden Cannot Beat Trump’, possibly because it was a veiled message to Xi Jinping. ‘The greatest contribution some men can make to their party, country, and people is to surrender power, exit the political stage, and head home to hug their grandchildren’, the essay began.
Last week, overseas Chinese dissident websites were spreading rumours that Xi had suffered a heart attack
It could well be that the CCP is still trying to calibrate its response to Biden’s withdrawal, but it does appear to have hit a raw nerve with China’s leaders.
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