China finally congratulates Biden and Harris on election victory
The gesture Friday ended whispers over Beijing’s reticence.
SEOUL, South Korea — Days after many other countries, China finally on Friday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for their U.S. election win, ending whispers over Beijing’s reticence.
Beijing's salutations came just over 24 hours after Biden's team said he had held phone calls with Australia, Japan and South Korea — U.S. allies that have watched with varying degrees of concern as Beijing has expanded its regional influence.
The early overture to China's neighbors reflected Biden's campaign promise of staying tough on China, but seeking a united front instead of the Trump administration's more unilateral approach. China's government has been cautiously optimistic about calmer relations with Washington under a Biden administration, though officials have no illusions of a major thaw.
"We respect the American people's choice," said China Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin at a regular news conference. "We congratulate Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris."
At the same time, Wang added, "we understand the U.S. election results will be confirmed based on U.S. law and procedure."
China's Foreign Ministry previously had held off issuing congratulations, saying only that it "noted" Biden's claim of victory. Chinese foreign policy analysts had explained the stance as a precautionary one, since President Trump has not conceded.
On Thursday in the United States, Edison Research projected that Biden would win Arizona, adding to the size of his projected victory.
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Bill Bishop, publisher of the Sinocism newsletter, said Beijing had been wary of congratulating Biden too early to avoid upsetting U.S.-China relations at a volatile moment before Trump conceded.
"Perhaps they have decided waiting much longer will antagonize Biden, so they have to get off the fence," Bishop said. "And they want to start engaging with team Biden."
Beijing's change of tack followed Biden's pledges of support for U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region — a step that would have raised the urgency for China to open its lines of communications with the president-elect.
In particular, Biden's discussion with Japan about territory claimed by China would have irked Beijing.
On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Biden gave a "commitment" in their phone call that U.S. pledges to defend Japan would include the Senkaku Islands, disputed rocky outcrops that are administered by Japan. China also claims the archipelago, which it calls the Diaoyu Islands.
With its centrally controlled bureaucracy, Beijing is generally conservative in its public remarks, and it is not unusual for it to issue statements days late in an uncertain situation. Trump's refusal to concede despite Biden's projected large margin of victory put China and other countries in uncharted territory.
In 2016, China's Foreign Ministry congratulated Trump on Nov. 10, a day after Hillary Clinton conceded the election.
U.S.-China relations have continued to be tense this week. The White House on Thursday issued an executive order banning U.S. investments in a few dozen Chinese companies it says have links to China's military.
Beijing also seized on the global distraction this week to gut Hong Kong's legislature by ordering the disqualification of lawmakers deemed "unpatriotic." The move was met with outrage from Western officials.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called it "a clear breach of the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration," a treaty signed in 1984 before the British handover of Hong Kong to China.
The Washington Post’s Lyric Li in Beijing and Gerry Shih in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.