President-elect Joe Biden gears up to face legal challenges as incumbent President Donald Trump hasn't conceded. China's and Russia's silence on the US election results in the meantime, speaks volumes. Chinese President Xi Jinping declined to congratulate Joe Biden as the winner of the US presidential election, saying the outcome of the vote was still to be determined.
Trump in the meantime tweeted, “We have a history in this country of election problems. In Pennsylvania you had an order by a... Supreme Court Justice to compel them to separate ballots that were received after the legislative deadline. It required the intervention of Justice Alito. That’s a large group of ballots.”
“We should look at the votes. We’re just beginning the tabulation stage. We should look at these allegations. We’re seeing a number of affidavits that there has been voter fraud,” he wrote.
Several world leaders including Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, France's President Emmanuel Macron and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Biden and running mate Kamala Harris after the Democrats were declared winners at the weekend and spontaneous celebrations erupted across American cities.
After declining to acknowledge Biden's victory despite repeated questions from reporters, China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “We hope the new US government can meet China halfway”. In the four years that Trump has been in the White House, US and China have had icy relations thanks to a trade war. The US has also imposed sanctions on China over human rights violations in Hong Kong and mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjian region.
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Russia too has been silent over the US election results. Russia was under scrutiny during the impeachment of Donald Trump on grounds that Russia had colluded to swing the 2016 elections in Trump's favour. Trump throughout his term has been accused of being sympathetic to Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin has said that it will wait for a final vote count before commenting on the election results. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “You can see that there are certain legal procedures that have been announced by the current president. That is why the situations are different and we, therefore, think it appropriate to wait for an official announcement.” Peskov also said that Putin is ready to work with any US leader.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, however, congratulated Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. "Congratulations to @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris on the victory and to the Americans on defining the new leadership in a free and fair election. This is a privilege which is not available to all countries. Looking forward to the new level of cooperation between Russia and the US," Navalny wrote on Twitter.