After supporters of US President Donald Trump broke into the US Capitol, Beijing took to social media on Thursday to criticise the “sharp contrast” between Washington’s response to the chaos and the 2019 Hong Kong anti-government protests.
China’s mouthpiece Global Times tweeted side-by-side photo comparisons of Hong Kong protesters occupying the city’s Legislative Council Complex in July 2019 with Wednesday’s Washington riots.
The latter saw Trump fans invade the US Capitol to protest the election defeat, taking selfies, scuffling with security and ransacking parts of the building.
“@SpeakerPelosi once referred to the Hong Kong riots as ‘a beautiful sight to behold’,” the Global Times said in the tweet, referring to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s June 2019 comment about Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy demonstrations.
“It remains yet to be seen whether she will say the same about the recent developments in Capitol Hill.”
China’s Communist Youth League also described the unrest as a “beautiful sight” on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
Beijing’s foreign ministry echoed those sentiments, saying “the reaction of some people in the US, including that of some media outlets, is completely different.”
The hashtag “Trump supporters storm US Capitol” pinballed across China’s Weibo on Thursday, racking up 570 million views, as users compared the global support for Hong Kong’s protesters with the outpouring of condemnation for the pro-Trump mob.
“At present, all European countries’ leaders have shown double standards and condemned it (Washington rioting),” read one Weibo comment which gained over 5,000 likes.
“I don’t know what kind of double-standard reports will be carried by Hong Kong or Taiwan media this time.”
“What happened in the Hong Kong Legislative Council last year is being repeated in the US Capitol,” wrote another user.