Chinese pundits mock Biden’s debate performance against Trump

Following the presidential debate on Thursday between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Chinese pundits ridiculed Biden's performance for his apparent poor cognitive state.  

According to the New York Post, Hu Xijin, a Chinese pundit and former state media editor, wrote on X, “This debate was very entertaining for many Chinese people. Objectively speaking, the low-quality performance of these two old men was a negative advertisement for Western democracy.”  

Chinese state-run news outlet Beijing News described Biden as “habitually confused,” focusing on his apparent lack of mental sharpness throughout the debate. On Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, posts characterized Biden as “looking like a robot and barely blinking” and suggested he showed “obvious signs of dementia." One user joked that it was a "miracle" that Biden could even stand for the entire debate.   

"To be honest, Trump is 78 years old, but his quick thinking and reaction ability are far better than many young people in their thirties and forties,” one commentator said  

Housha Moonlight, a Chinese blogger with almost four million followers, declared, “Trump won” the first of the two presidential debates.  

“It doesn’t matter what the debate was about. The key is that the witty and flexible Trump successfully highlighted the old and dying appearance of the sleeping king,” Moonlight said, as translated in a report from Business Insider.   

Chinese President Xi Jinping has not commented on the debate as of Friday afternoon. But as Chinese pundits mocked Biden for his debate performance, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also commented on the events that took place on Thursday night. Peskov dismissed Russia’s focus on the debate, saying that Putin slept through the broadcast.  

“Well, look, I don’t think you expect the president of Russia might set an alarm clock, wake up before morning, and watch the debates in the United States of America?” Peskov said to reporters, according to Reuters.  

“We have a lot of issues that are really important for our country, which are relevant for us. These are the issues that our president is dealing with. Debates in the United States are not part of the main issues on the agenda.”