WASHINGTON, July 17 (BBC): US President Donald Trump has delivered a primetime address in which he accused China of interfering in the 2020 election and alleged "shocking vulnerabilities" in American voting systems.
Trump, who spoke from the White House on Thursday, has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign meddling in the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In the half-hour speech, delivered three months before the midterm elections, he said he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files which supported his claims that Beijing had tried to sway the election in Biden's favour.
The US intelligence community has previously concluded China did not interfere in the 2020 election.
In response to his speech, China's foreign ministry strongly denied the allegations of Chinese meddling in the 2020 presidential election, saying they were "entirely fabricated".
Trump's claims are "malicious smears" which have "long been proven to be groundless", foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
Trump spoke in front of several members of his top team as he gave his address, but journalists were unable to put questions to the president.
In his remarks, he accused China of the "illicit acquisition" of 220 million voter files including personal information.
Trump said voter data in 18 states was "bought, stolen or hacked by China" and accused "those responsible for sounding the alarm" of not disclosing the discovery to government officials or Congress.
A lot of voter data is publicly available and Trump did not in his speech present any evidence that China had used this information to alter voting systems or to influence election outcomes.
Hundreds of pages of intelligence documents were released by the White House during Trump's address, many of them heavily redacted. The BBC is in the process of reviewing them.
Democrats, meanwhile, accused Trump of attempting to sow doubts about the security of the upcoming November midterms which will decide control of Congress for the remainder of his presidency.
"Let's be clear - in America, voters choose their leaders, not the other way around," top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer posted on social media after the speech.
"Democrats will fight like hell to make sure every American voter can cast their ballot freely, without obstruction or interference from Donald Trump," he added.
Meanwhile, Beijing accused US President Donald Trump of making "fabrications" on Friday, after he said China had meddled in US election data, reviving his long-standing baseless claims of voter fraud ahead of midterm polls many expect him to dispute.
Trump said in a White House address on Thursday that the US electoral system had been dangerously exposed and urged lawmakers to adopt new restrictions on voting, despite scant appetite for the measures even within his Republican Party.
The US president also said he would declassify intelligence that purportedly shows that China had illicitly acquired 220 million voter files.
"The relevant claims made by the US side are pure fabrications and malicious smears that have long since been proven to be groundless statements," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a news conference when asked about Trump's latest claims.
"China has … no interest in the US election and has never interfered in it," Lin said.
"The international community sees very clearly who it is that habitually interferes in the internal affairs of other countries."
"We urge the US side to reflect on its own actions, stop baselessly smearing China, refrain from making an issue of China in its elections, and do more to benefit China-US relations," he added.
Trump's claim that the 2020 election was "rigged" has never been substantiated.
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