China says Twitter hacked after Trump retweet

The Chinese embassy in the US has said its Twitter account was hacked after users noticed the account had retweeted a groundless claim by outgoing US President Donald Trump.

The embassy's official account retweeted the original tweet soon after it was posted. The original tweet now includes a warning that its claim was disputed, reports BBC.  

In his post, Trump repeated earlier baseless allegations of election fraud in the polls he lost last month, ending "how can a country be run like this?"

But the embassy has denied the retweet.

"The Chinese Embassy twitter account was hacked this afternoon and we condemn such an act. For clarification, the Embassy didn't do any retweeting on 9 December," it said.

But the tweet had already picked up traction on the social media platform, with several remarking on its significance at a time of fragile US-China relations.

Under Trump's administration their bilateral relationship has deteriorated with the two economic superpowers locked in disputes spanning from trade and technology to suspected espionage.

Officially, China has congratulated Trump's electoral opponent, Joe Biden, for winning the election, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying they "respect the choice of the American people".

This is not the first time one of China's embassies have run into problems on Twitter: Beijing's UK embassy in September asked the social media platform to conduct an investigation after its ambassador's official account liked a pornographic clip.

Chinese officials claimed Ambassador Liu Xiaoming's account had been attacked as part of a "despicable" plot designed to "deceive the public".