US President Donald Trump released declassified intelligence documents on Thursday which he claims prove Chinese interference in the 2020 US elections, N1 and Index report.
His claims contradict a 2021 assessment by the US intelligence community. It found no signs that any foreign actor altered any technical aspect of voting in those elections.
In a 25-minute prime-time address, Trump asserted that China had illegally obtained 220 million files of American voters, containing names, addresses and registration data. He also claimed that members of the intelligence community had deliberately concealed the extent of Chinese activities.
The 2021 assessment, which found no evidence of interference, was led by John Ratcliffe, then Trump’s director of national intelligence and now CIA director. The newly released documents do not support all of the president’s claims: one relates to elections in Venezuela, another estimates that vote-counting systems would be "difficult to manipulate on a large enough scale to affect election results", and a third states that Beijing "does not currently intend to secretly interfere" in the outcome of the election.
The Chinese embassy dismissed the allegations. "China has never interfered and will never interfere in presidential elections in the United States", said spokesperson Liu Chang. Democratic senator Mark Warner called Trump’s claims about China "completely false".
The speech comes four months before the November midterms, at which Republicans defend their majority in both houses of Congress. Trump is simultaneously pressuring party colleagues to pass a law with stricter voter identification and citizenship proof requirements, although previous findings show that voter fraud in the US is rare.
Some major television networks did not broadcast the speech on their main channels: ABC and NBC offered it only on their streaming platforms, and CNN on its website and subscription service. Trump accused the networks of a "conspiracy" and threatened to revoke their licences, while experts remind that broadcasters decide what to show under the First Amendment.
The sharp stance against China carries risks for bilateral relations, stabilised after last year’s trade war — Trump hopes for a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in September on trade issues.
