As democratic governments around the world reacted to President Donald Trump supporters' storming of the Capitol, China's official propagandists found the chaos a defense for its authoritarian policies and iron-fisted suppression of dissent.
If you don't allow the storming of your own legislature, they asked, how could you support it in Hong Kong?
Chinese propaganda outlets seized on Wednesday's breaching of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob to castigate U.S. politicians for their support of violent protesters in Hong Kong who broke into the city's legislature in 2019.
"SpeakerPelosi once referred to the Hong Kong riots as 'a beautiful sight to behold' - it remains yet to be seen whether she will say the same about the recent developments in Capitol Hill," the nationalistic Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times posted on Twitter.
For many Western observers, the two scenarios were different in kind. In Hong Kong, protesters who were demanding the right to elect the city's leaders tried to stop an extradition bill they viewed as an alarming step in China's erosion of Hong Kong's freedoms. In the United States, Trump supporters were seeking to prevent a peaceful transfer of power.
Chinese state media did not go into such distinctions, simply finding in the U.S. example a justification for China's own crackdowns against dissent. Beijing has long argued that its restrictions on its people's freedoms were necessary to prevent chaos, and the unrest in the United States has played into that narrative.
The Chinese Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection ran a commentary by political columnist Lan Linzong, saying the U.S. image as a "beacon of democracy and freedom" has been shattered.
"This 'beautiful sight' is just one of many outbreaks resulting from deep-rooted internal conflicts in America," she wrote.
#TrumpSupportersStormCapitol was trending on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Thursday, with some 54,000 posts and 500 million views as of early afternoon.
For China's government, the unrest in Washington has also been useful as a distraction from its offensives in Hong Kong. On Tuesday evening U.S. time, as Americans were gripped by the Georgia runoff election, Hong Kong authorities effectively neutralized the city's remaining democracy movement, arresting 53 former lawmakers and activists, including an American lawyer.
In quieter times, the arrest of an American human rights attorney in China would have drawn widespread attention. During the 2019 Hong Kong democracy protests, the fate of the city topped headlines for days.
But the Hong Kong crackdown was quickly overshadowed by the storming of the Capitol, which threw the U.S. government into an unprecedented crisis. As U.S. officials debated if the president should be removed from office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's late-night statement that the United States would consider further sanctions against Hong Kong's government hardly drew notice.
"We hope that the American people can enjoy peace, stability and security as soon as possible," China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was quoted in state media Thursday.
The Chinese embassy posted a warning about the Washington violence and curfew Wednesday, telling Chinese citizens to be careful of their safety and to consider avoiding crowded places.
"In case of danger or emergency, please call the police in a timely fashion," the embassy's statement said.
Information for this article was contributed by Lyric Li and Alicia Chen of The Washington Post.