Shortly after wrapping up his visit to China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleged that the United States has seen evidence which shows Chinese attempts of trying to "influence or arguably interfere" with the upcoming presidential elections in November.
Speaking to CNN, the top US diplomat stated that US has "credible evidence" that China has been trying to interfere in the upcoming elections where Joe Biden will be facing Donald Trump for the post of President.
Blinken's claims come despite Chinese President Xi Jinping denying that Beijing would interfering in the American elections.
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During his meeting with the Chinese President, Blinken told CNN that he repeated Joe Biden's message to Xi to not interfere in the 2024 elections. President Biden had met Xi Jinping in November 2023 during a summit in San Francisco.
In what was their first meeting since the G20 Bali Summit, Jinping had pledged to Biden that China would not interfere in its election process.
“We have seen, generally speaking, evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere, and we want to make sure that that’s cut off as quickly as possible,” stated Blinken after completing his three-day visit to China.
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Any interference by China in our election is something that we’re looking very carefully at and is totally unacceptable to us, so I wanted to make sure that they heard that message again,” the Secretary of State added further.
Apart from China, Blinken also raised concerns about other countries potentially interfering in their presidential elections.
Blinken Marks Second Visit To China
This was Antony Blinken's second visit to Beijing in less than a year. This visit was part of high-level government engagements that took place after Biden and Xi met in 2023.
The two countries are now working towards expanding their communications and improving their bilateral relations.
We are (now) focused on areas where we’re working to cooperate, but also we’re being very forthright about our differences and that’s important if we’re going to avoid the competition we’re in turning into conflict," stated Blinken.
China Also On Canada's List For Election Interference
Apart from the United States, China has also been flagged as one of the countries responsible for interfering in their local elections in 2019 and national elections in 2021.
Canada had accused China, Pakistan, Iran, Russia and India of poll interference. However, upon further investigation, India has cleared of any interference.
