President Donald Trump has been at loggerheads with China ever since the United States became the epicenter of the novel coronavirus. Continuing his criticism, Trump lashed out at China for allegedly waging a "disinformation and propaganda attack against the United States and Europe". Trump said China's 'incompetence' led to 'mass worldwide killing'.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Trump lashed out against China apparently in response to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhou Lijian's statement earlier on Wednesday. Trump tweeted that the "spokesman speaks stupidly on behalf of China", which according to him is "trying desperately to deflect the pain and carnage that their country spread throughout the world".
He called China's alleged "disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe" as a "disgrace" and that "it all comes from the top", directing fire at President Xi Jinping. According to Trump, China could have easily stopped the novel coronavirus, "but they didn't!"
The statement is significant since it is the first time that he hit out at China's top leadership, i.e. President Xi Jinping himself, though he had often attacked China on numerous occasions. Until now Trump had maintained that his relationship with Xi remained strong.
In another tweet, Trump brought his top political rival Joe Biden into his tirade against China. According to him, China is on a massive disinformation campaign as it desperately wants Biden to win "so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades."
China's Incompetency Responsible for 'Worldwide killing'
Earlier in the day, Trump hit out at the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman for "blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people". "It was the "incompetence of China", and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing", Trump wrote.
At a daily press briefing on Wednesday, responding to a question regarding Trump's letter to the WHO's Director-General, Lijian said that the international community does not agree with the US 'fact-distorting and self-contradictory actions' whose aim is to "shift the blame and responsibility to others and undermine international cooperation on COVID-19 response".
According to Lijian, there "is simply not enough time" to enumerate U.S.A.'s "lies and rumors". He presented several points to highlight how his country has been transparent and steadfast in fighting the novel coronavirus. Closing his remarks, he urged "some US politicians" to "reflect on their actions, stop political maneuvering and focus on saving more lives".
After praising China's COVID response during the initial outbreak, Trump has taken an aggressively critical stance against it. One of the reasons is that although the disease originated in Wuhan and spread worldwide, the USA is the worst-hit nation both in terms of the number of cases and fatalities. Also, the novel coronavirus outbreak has stalled all political campaigns, negatively impacting Trump, who is seeking re-election in this year's presidential election.
As on Thursday, U.S. has reported over 1.55 million Covid-19 cases and as many as 93,439 fatalities.
