China hopes ‘unpredictable’ Trump will lose election, US counter-intelligence official says
- The latest warning comes as the presidential election takes place in less than three months
- China has grown ‘critical of the current administration’s Covid-19 response, closure of China’s Houston consulate’, the official says
China is expanding its effort to influence the November presidential election in a way that would lead to President Donald Trump losing, said a top US counter-intelligence official in a public warning.
China views Trump as “unpredictable” and the US now “assesses that China prefers that President Trump does not win re-election,” said Bill Evanina, director of the National Counter-intelligence and Security Centre, in a statement on Friday.
“Although China will continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action, its public rhetoric over the past few months has grown increasingly critical of the current administration’s Covid-19 response, closure of China’s Houston consulate and actions on other issues,” Evanina wrote.
When asked about the statement at a news conference late on Friday, Trump said: “China would love us to have an election with Donald Trump lost to sleepy Joe Biden.”
“If Joe Biden was president, China would own our country.
“I’ve taken tens of billions of dollars from China,” he said. “China was having the worst year they’ve had in 67 years and we were having the best year we’ve ever had.”