As America witnessed one of the darkest days in the US history after
supporters of President Donald Trump broke into the US Capitol, China, in an
attempt to add a note of levity, compared the state of the Capitol to the Hong
Kong anti-government protests of 2019, AFP reported.

Global Times, China’s state-affiliated media, tweeted photographs of the
Capitol, drawing analogy with the Hong Kong protesters occupying the city’s
Legislative Council Complex in July 2019 on Thursday morning.

The US Capitol saw Trump fans invade in, to protest the election defeat,
taking selfies, scuffling with security and ransacking parts of the building.

“@SpeakerPelosi once referred to the Hong Kong riots as ‘a
beautiful sight to behold’,” the Global Times said in the tweet, referring
to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s June 2019 comment about Hong Kong’s mass
pro-democracy demonstrations, which were mostly peaceful at that time.

“It remains yet to be seen whether she will say the same about the
recent developments in Capitol Hill,” the tweet said.

Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, took to Twitter to express her views on the Capitol ‘assault’.

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo extended support during the
Hong Kong protest saying, “We stand with the people of Hong Kong.”

However, when
US Capitol was invaded with protesters, Pompeo conveniently changes his
previous opinion saying “Lawlessness and rioting is always unacceptable.”

China’s Communist Youth League also described the strife as a ‘beautiful
sight’ on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.

The hashtag ‘Trump supporters storm US Capitol’ spread all over
Weibo on Thursday, garnering up to 230 million views, as users compared the
global support for Hong Kong’s protesters with the outpouring of condemnation
for the pro-Trump mob.

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“At present, all European countries’ leaders have shown double
standards and condemned it (Washington rioting),” read one Weibo comment
which gained over 5,000 likes.

“I don’t know what kind of double-standard reports will be carried
by Hong Kong or Taiwan media this time.”

“What happened in the Hong Kong Legislative Council last year is
being repeated in the US Capitol,” wrote another user in a comment with
over 4,500 likes.

Hong Kong protesters had stormed the legislature to demand democracy —
a battle they apparently lost as China smothered the territory with a national
security law.

US President-elect Joe Biden said the US rioters were undermining
democracy by trying to overturn Trump’s defeat in November’s election.