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US presidential election: Biden becomes the hottest topic on Chinese social media
- Millions of people have their say on the race for the White House and its likely new occupant on platforms like Weibo and WeChat
- Topic hosted by state broadcaster CCTV about Trump supporters protesting with guns attracts 140 million views
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China’s tightly controlled social media platforms are seldom used for political discussion, but Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election has bucked the trend.
As of Sunday afternoon, posts about the president-elect on the Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo had attracted more than 730 million views, while Tencent’s WeChat Moments – similar to Facebook’s Timeline – was equally busy.
“Everyone cares about the US election so much, but I don’t even know who is the mayor of Shanghai,” one Weibo user said.
Many of the comments on the platform were about the possibility of Donald Trump – who has yet to concede defeat – refusing to leave the White House.
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“[Biden was] rushing to falsely pose as the winner … The simple fact is this election is far from over,” the president said in a statement on his campaign website.
Another Weibo user said: “When [Biden] enters the White House next January, he will face a series of unprecedented challenges: how to carry Trump out of the White House.”
Chinese state media have also hosted Weibo topics, many of them focused on the potential post-election uncertainty in the US.
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