As calls for inquiries and reparations spread, Beijing has responded aggressively, mixing threats with aid and adding to a growing mistrust of China.
BRUSSELS — Australia has called for an inquiry into the origin of the virus. Germany and Britain are hesitating anew about inviting in the Chinese tech giant Huawei. President Trump has blamed China for the contagion and is seeking to punish it. Some governments want to sue Beijing for damages and reparations.
Across the globe a backlash is building against China for its initial mishandling of the crisis that helped loose the coronavirus on the world, creating a deeply polarizing battle of narratives and setting back China’s ambition to fill the leadership vacuum left by the United States.
China, never receptive to outside criticism and wary of damage to its domestic control and long economic reach, has responded aggressively, combining medical aid to other countries with harsh nationalist rhetoric, and mixing demands for gratitude with economic threats.
The result has only added momentum to the blowback and the growing mistrust of China in Europe and Africa, undermining China’s desired image as a generous global actor.
MORE CHINA PRESSURE: World leaders demand wet markets be shut down: Scientists estimate that 60-75% of emerging diseases are ‘zoonotic,’ or originating from animals.
Amid an escalating war of words between Australia and China provoked by the global spread of the coronavirus, international pressure is building on China to close its wildlife “wet” markets, a notorious source of infectious diseases jumping from animals to humans.
As global health experts were learning about the eruption of COVID-19 in the Chinese industrial city of Wuhan in January, Beijing ordered a temporary shutdown of wet markets, followed by a “permanent” ban in February.
In mid-April, China’s wet markets reopened.
POMPEO SAYS ENORMOUS EVIDENCE COVID CAME FROM WUHAN LAB. “There Are Many Labs Inside Of China, Martha. This Risk Remains.”
Secretary of State Pompeo was interviewed on ABC’s This Week and said there’s “enormous evidence” exists indicating the coronavirus pandemic began in a lab in Wuhan and added China and that the ruling Communist Party did everything it could to keep the outbreak under wraps. Something we all suspected but it is nice to have confirmed from someone high-up in the administration. Covid came from Wuhan lab
Martha Raddatz: And Mr. Secretary, have you seen anything that gives you high confidence that it originated in that Wuhan lab?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Martha, there is enormous evidence that that’s where this began. We’ve said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China. We took a lot of grief for that from the outside, but I think the whole world can see now.
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h/t GR