Trump claims Chinese interference in 2020 election; China denies

US President Donald Trump used US prime time TV to assert Chinese interference in US elections in 2020.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry dismissed his claims.

The 25-minute prime-time address underscored US President Donald Trump's effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November's midterm elections, when his fellow Republicans will be defending their slender congressional majorities.

Trump said the declassified material would reveal "shocking vulnerabilities in the US's election infrastructure."

DONALD TRUMP: "Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in elections, but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly. And that's what we're doing. The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files. Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State very, very famous group of people, in many cases in our intelligence agency, worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling."

Trump's speech presented allegations of interference and influence in ways that lacked key context, and did not produce evidence that votes had been manipulated or that the election outcome had been altered.

Repeated audits and reviews, many run by Republicans, including Trump's own then-attorney general, have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.

Trump's harsh language about China risked rocking a relationship that has steadied following last year's costly trade war.

Trump hopes to meet with President Xi Jinping in September about improving trade relations.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said "the allegations by the US are entirely fabricated and aimed at vilifying China and have long been proven to be groundless."

The ministry added China "has been upholding the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, has no interest in interfering in US elections and has never done so."

The US TV networks were split on whether to air Donald Trump's controversial address live.

CNN, ABC and NBC chose not to air the speech live, while CBS and FOX at least aired large portions of it in real time.

Trump has since called out ABC and NBC and suggested they should lose their licenses to broadcast.