US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned China that
it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the
coronavirus outbreak, as he heightened up criticism of Beijing over its
handling of the outbreak.
“It could have been stopped in China before it started
and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it,” Trump told a
daily White House briefing.
It was the latest US volley in a war of words between the
world’s two biggest economies, showing increased strains in relations at a time
when experts say an unprecedented level of cooperation is needed to deal with
the COVID-19 crisis.
“If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they
were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then sure there should be
consequences,” Trump said. He did not elaborate on what actions the US might take.
Trump and senior aides have accused China of a lack of
transparency after the coronavirus broke out late last year in its city of
Wuhan. This week he suspended aid to the World Health Organisation accusing it
of being “China-centric.”
Washington and Beijing have repeatedly sparred in public
over the virus. Trump initially lavished praise on China and his counterpart Xi
Jinping for their response. But he and other senior officials have also
referred to it as the “Chinese virus” and in recent days have ramped up their
rhetoric.
They have also angrily rejected earlier attempts by some
Chinese officials to blame the origin of the virus on the US military.
Trump’s domestic critics say that while China performed
badly at the outset and must still come clean on what happened, he is now
seeking to use Beijing to help deflect from the shortcomings of his own
response and take advantage of growing anti-China sentiment among some voters
for his 2020 re-election bid.
At the same time, however, White House officials are
mindful of the potential backlash if tensions get too heated. The United States
is heavily reliant on China for personal protection equipment desperately
needed by American medical workers, and Trump also wants to keep a hard-won
trade deal on track.
Trump said that until recently the US-China relationship
had been good, citing a multi-billion agricultural agreement aimed at defusing
a bitter trade war. “But then all of a sudden you hear about this,” he said.
He said the Chinese were “embarrassed” and the question
now was whether what happened with the coronavirus was “a mistake that got out
of control, or was it done deliberately?”
“There’s a big
difference between those two,” he said.
Wuhan lab
Trump also raised questions about a Wuhan virology
laboratory that Fox News this week reported had likely
developed the coronavirus as part of China’s effort to demonstrate its capacity
to identify and combat viruses. Trump has said his government is seeking to
determine whether the virus emanated from a Chinese lab.
As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan
Institute of Virology dismissed rumors that the virus may have been
artificially synthesized at one of its labs or perhaps escaped from such a
facility.
Wandering off the topic of the coronavirus, Trump also
used the White House briefing to take a swipe at presumed Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden and his long record on China as a senator and
former vice president.
While stressing his own confrontational trade policies
toward China, Trump, using his nickname “Sleepy Joe” for his rival, said if Biden
wins the White House that China and other countries “will take our country.”
Trump also again cast doubt on China’s death toll, which
was revised up on Friday. China said 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus
in Wuhan — half the total — were not counted, but dismissed
allegations of a cover-up.
The United States has by far the world’s largest number
of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 720,000 infections and over
37,000 deaths.
Even Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House
coronavirus task force who has steered clear of political aspects of Trump’s
contentions briefings, questioned China’s data.
Showing on a chart that China’s death rate per 100,000
people was far below major European countries and the United States, she called
China’s numbers “unrealistic” and said it had a “moral obligation” to provide
credible information.
