Chinese embassy in US allege hacking after retweet of Trump’s election claim

The Chinese embassy in the US has said its Twitter account was hacked after it retweeted a baseless claim by Donald Trump accusing the Democrats of cheating in the election.

Late on Wednesday night in the US, Trump posted: “If somebody cheated in the election, which the Democrats did, why wouldn’t the election be immediately overturned? How can a country be run like this?”

The post, which now carries a Twitter warning that the claim of election fraud is “disputed”, was retweeted within minutes by the official account for the Chinese government’s presence in the US, catching the eye of social media users.

The embassy then tweeted that it had not done any retweeting on 9 December. “The Chinese embassy Twitter account was hacked this afternoon and we condemn such an act,” it said.

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Interesting retweet pic.twitter.com/5pdxSdPQyu

December 9, 2020

China’s government formally congratulated Joe Biden on winning the election on 26 November. The China-US relationship has deteriorated during Trump’s term as president, While initially praising the leadership of Xi Jinping, Trump soon pivoted to a tough stance against the Chinese government, and the two nations sparred over trade, technology, human rights, and visas for journalists and diplomats.

Trump, who remains president until Biden’s inauguration in January, has continued to issue executive orders and sanctions against China and its officials, and key appointees have continued to air major accusations and criticisms.

Twitter is among numerous social media platforms banned in China but the country’s diplomatic missions and staff around the world maintain accounts.

It’s not the first time China has claimed one of its diplomatic accounts was hacked following controversial Twitter activity. In September, the ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming’s account liked posts critical of the Chinese Communist party and another containing a 10-second video of a sex act. The likes remained active for several hours, until the embassy in London declared Liu’s account was “viciously attacked” by “anti-China elements”, and demanded Twitter carry out a “thorough” investigation.

In 2020 Twitter has sought to take some measures against fake and questionable claims by official accounts, introducing labels for those affiliated with state media and governments in China, Russia and other nations, and attaching warnings to many of Trump’s spurious accusations, including those of voter fraud and election cheating.