America's adversaries revel over US Capitol storming
America's adversaries were quick to pour scorn on the US over the storming of the Capitol building, declaring it to symbolise the decline of a once-great nation.
In comments that mixed stinging criticism, glee and faux-concern, they said it demonstrated the perils of a US democratic system now in all-out crisis.
America's arch-enemy Iran led the charge, with President Hassan Rouhani saying that that the rampage by of Donald Trump supporters exposed the dangerous "populism" of the outgoing US president.
"What we saw in the United States yesterday evening and today shows above all how fragile and vulnerable Western democracy is," Mr Rouhani said in a speech broadcast by state television.
"We saw that unfortunately the ground is fertile for populism, despite the advances in science and industry. A populist has arrived and he has led his country to disaster over these past four years."
Mr Rouhani, who has been at loggerheads with Mr Trump after he pulled of Iran's international nuclear deal, also hinted that incident should be a wake-up call to incoming President Joe Biden, with whom he hopes for better relations.
"May they return to reason, legality and their obligations. It's for their own benefit and the good of the world," he said.
In China, which has been the target of Mr Trump's trade war, the state-backed Global Times newspaper made gloatings comparison with the scenes of pro-democracy protesters storming the Hong Kong parliament in 2019.
In a tweet directed at Nancy Pelosi, the US House of Representatives, the newspaper said: "@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."
China's US embassy also issued a note to Chinese citizens in the US to "pay close attention to the local epidemic and security situation, be vigilant, take safety precautions and consider going to public places carefully."
In Russia, officials compared the US scenes to those in Ukraine in 2014, when pro-Western democracy activists in Kiev's Maidan Square led protests that toppled the pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovich.
"Quite Maidan-style pictures are coming from DC," said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's deputy UN Ambassador, in a post on Twitter. He added: "Some of my friends ask whether someone will distribute crackers to the protesters to echo Victoria Nuland stunt."
He was referring to a 2013 visit to Ukraine when then-US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland offered food to protesters. Other US critics, such as the governments of Turkey and Venezuela - both of which have experienced major anti-government unrest themselves in recent years - took the opportunity to strike a statesmanlike pose.
Jorge Arreaza, the foreign minister of Venezuela's, issued a statement expressing "concern over the violence in Washington".
But Dr Jonathan Eyal, an expert on global security issues at the Royal United Services Institute, said the violent scenes in Washington would offer only "short-term" political advantages to undemocratic regimes.
"The Chinese have a history of laughing at parliamentary democracy, seeing it as just chaos, and they have made direct comparisons with the scenes of demonstrators defacing the Hong Kong parliament," he said.
"But that's nonsense - in Hong Kong, it's people protesting for the actual right to vote, whereas in Washington it's people protesting a vote they didn't like."
In the long-term, he said the incoming Biden administration could actually use the protests to enhance America's international standing as a democratic nation.
"One of the problems with America's democracy promotion agenda was that it always appeared so superior,” he said. “But if the Biden officials conduct themselves well, they can say to the world 'look, these problems can affect us all, and here is how we fix them'."
