In Photos: Asia Watches as US Election Results Roll in

November 4, 2020 Off By VICE Staff

As the results for the 2020 U.S. election roll in, people in Asia anxiously watch on, knowing the outcome will affect their economies and geopolitical relationships just as much as their own elections.

At time of writing the results are still too close to call. U.S. President Donald Trump has won Florida, Ohio and Texas. But Democratic nominee Joe Biden urged patience, saying in a late night speech that "it ain't over until every vote is counted."

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Activists of Hindu Sena, a right wing group, take part in a prayer ceremony for the victory of US President Donald Trump in the US presidential elections in New Delhi on Nov. 3, 2020. Photo: Prakash SINGH / AFP

But thousands of miles away groups gathered in meeting rooms, restaurants and at home, for watch parties and to cheer on their chosen candidate.

In India, Trump enjoys support from the nation's Hindu nationalists, who perceive his conservative agenda to be closely aligned with their own.

One study by the Pew Research Center discovered that 56 percent of Indians agreed with the statement that Trump would "do the right thing

when it comes to world affairs." This survey, from February, reported that number to be just 16 percent when the president was first elected in 2016.

An Indian group known as Hindu Sena (aka the Hindu Army), which claims to have some 5 million followers, conducted a ritual in support of Trump on Nov. 3. Photos of the American president were held alongside images of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

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Photo: Prakash SINGH / AFP

"India can fight terrorism only if Trump is around, and both China and Pakistan will stay restrained as long as he is the president," the group's founder, Vishnu Gupta, told news18 over the phone.

In October, the New York Times profiled a rural farmer who built a life-sized statue of Trump in his backyard, whom he prayed to every morning.

The village's leader told the Times that the farmer admired Trump's "straightforward ways and blunt speech." But the mega-fan met with a bizarre and tragic end after he stopped eating when Trump contracted coronavirus and later died from cardiac arrest.

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People watch a television news programme reporting on the US presidential election at a railway station in Seoul on Nov. 4, 2020. Jung Yeon-je / AFP

Meanwhile, over in South Korea, Biden is broadly seen as the favorite, as many people lost faith in Trump after he demanded the country quadruple its fee to receive support from U.S. troops not long after his inauguration. The new price, according to Trump, was $5 billion.

In addition, many South Koreans are concerned that another Trump presidency will continue to dial up tensions between China and its eastern neighbors.

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Conservative activists wave flags in support of US President Donald Trump as they gather to mark election day outside the US embassy in Seoul on November 3, 2020. Ed JONES / AFP

As Park Won-gon, a professor of international relations at Handong Global University, told The Diplomat, "Trump will keep pushing South Korea to join the anti-China movement based on his past four-year policies toward China."

It's for these reasons that Biden is the default favorite, even if he's less likely to lure North Korea's Kim Jong Un back to the negotiating table, which many South Koreans considered the one achievement of Trump's presidency.

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Monitors display the Japanese yen's exchange rate against the US dollar (C) and Nikkei 225 index at a foreign exchange trading company in Tokyo on Nov. 4, 2020, as Asian markets react to early predictions following the US presidential election. Photo: Philip FONG / AFP

In Japan, only a quarter of people have confidence in Trump, according to the Pew Research Center, which conducted another survey from June 10 to Aug. 3, 2020. The report also noted that only 41 percent of Japanese respondents had a favorable view of the U.S., which is the lowest since the survey was first taken in 2000.

Like in South Korea, many Japanese see Biden as someone who might re-enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and engage more closely with Tokyo, both economically and militarily.