Chinese government claims it was 'hacked' after it shared Trump's baseless claim on social media

• The Twitter account belonging to the Chinese government claimed it was "hacked" after it retweeted one of President Donald Trump's tweets.
• Trump's tweet raised doubts about the recent presidential race and accused a political party of fraudulently coming to power.

Chinese officials in the US claimed their social media account was hacked after a government Twitter account retweeted one of President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims about the results of the 2020 election.

"The Chinese Embassy twitter account was hacked this afternoon and we condemn such an act," the Washington, D.C.-based account said. "For clarification, the Embassy didn't do any retweeting on Dec.9."

The tweet the embassy shared was one in which Trump raised doubts about the presidential race he lost and accused a political party of fraudulently coming to power.

"If somebody cheated in the Election, which the Democrats did, why wouldn't the Election be immediately overturned," Trump tweeted. "How can a Country be run like this?"

The embassy's Twitter account frequently posts stories from state-affiliated news networks, some of which disregard the mounting evidence that human-rights violations have taken place in Xinjiang. The account has also been labeled by Twitter as one that is operated by the Chinese government, a communist state with an unelected leader. Twitter mentions in a disclaimer that "China blocks access to Twitter for regular users."

"We believe that people benefit from additional context when interacting with Chinese government and state-affiliated accounts," Twitter says in its disclaimer.

US-China relations have been particularly tense in recent days after Beijing announced retaliatory measures aimed at US politicians for imposing sanctions. During the Trump administration, the two countries have often waged tit-for-tat diplomatic warfare, particularly in light of the continuing trade war.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won the majority of electoral votes from states that certified their results - 306 votes, compared to Trump's 232.

Republican operatives have been fighting the election result on the basis of dubious evidence. Subsequent legal challenges levied by the Trump campaign, including a request to invalidate hundreds of thousands of ballots, have been met with significant resistance from federal judges.

Of at least 38 lawsuits filed, the campaign and other GOP-tied groups have yet to be victorious.

Despite President-elect Joe Biden's likely inauguration on January 20, 2021, Trump has cast aspersions against both Democrats and Republicans and has baselessly claimed the election was "rigged."