President Joe Biden's decision to end his bid for a second term leaves the Democratic Party in dire straits, according to a Chinese researcher.
Biden's announcement on Sunday, made fewer than four months before Election Day, came after weeks of pressure from prominent Democratic Party members and donors to step aside following the June 27 debate with Republican contender Donald Trump.
Biden's performance in the debate, widely seen as weak, further fueled concerns over his fitness to serve and that he would cost his party the White House, at-risk governorships, and their razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.
Biden, in his statement announcing his departure from the race, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
The choice underscores a "desperate situation" in which "by replacing Biden with Harris, the Democratic Party can see if there is still a slim chance to win this presidential election," nationalistic Chinese state-run outlet the Global Times cited Lu Xiang, a research fellow at state research institute the Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.
Lu called the move a "rational and pragmatic approach" and one that was correct, "although it came a bit late."
Other Chinese analysts expressed doubts over Harris's ability to pull off a win in the November 5 election.
"Looking at Harris's overall track record, her performance as vice president has not been particularly outstanding, and she has not achieved satisfactory results," Sun Chenghao, who helms the U.S.-EU program at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Beijing's Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying in Chinese news outlet The Paper.
China's Foreign Ministry and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Harris trailed Trump in three of four polls conducted between July 7 and July 21, though by a smaller margin than Biden. Harris led Trump 50 percent to 49 percent in an NPR/PBS/Maris poll, though this was within the margin of error.
So far, no other Democrat has announced a challenge to Harris. If someone throws their hat into the ring, Harris will enjoy a fundraising edge with her campaign having assumed control of the Biden campaign's war chest.
The next nominee will be decided during this year's Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
Chinese netizens have been closely following developments in this election cycle, from the attempted assassination of Trump earlier this month to Biden's withdrawal from the race, which was briefly a top-trending topic on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Since the latter half of the Trump administration, the U.S. and China have been locked in trade and tech wars, a military rivalry in the Asia Pacific, and at loggerheads over human rights in China and Beijing's threats toward neighboring Taiwan.
Asked by a Global Times reporter during a press conference on Monday to respond to Biden's announcement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning declined to comment, saying the election is an internal affair of the U.S.
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