China’s US embassy said its Twitter account was hacked after users noticed it had retweeted a baseless claim by outgoing US President Trump.
In his post, trump repeated earlier unfounded allegations of election fraud in the polls he lost last month, ending “how can a country be run like this?”.
The tweet – which now includes a warning that the claim was disputed – was retweeted by the embassy’s official account within minutes.
But the embassy has denied the retweet.
Officially, China has congratulated Trump’s electoral opponent, joe Biden, for winning the election, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying they “respect the choice of the American people”.
But Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud without providing evidence.
The Chinese embassy’s retweet was picked up by Twitter users late on Wednesday in the US, with several remarking on its significance at a time of fragile US-China relations.
Under Trump’s administration, the countries’ bilateral relationship has deteriorated with the two economic superpowers locked in disputes spanning from trade and technology to suspected espionage.
Later on Wednesday, the Chinese embassy firmly distanced itself from the retweet.
“The Chinese Embassy twitter account was hacked this afternoon and we condemn such an act. For clarification, the Embassy didn’t do any retweeting on Dec. 9,” it posted
