My Take | US may be Beijing’s best excuse against coronavirus probe
- Forming an independent and international expert group to look into the origins and spread of the worst global pandemic in decades is reasonable, but America is turning such calls into a blatant political ploy that China will no doubt exploit to fight any such move
In the expanding chorus of nations calling for an inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States may turn out to be Beijing’s best friend.
This may sound paradoxical or even ridiculous. After all, the US has been the most vocal among Western nations in making almost daily accusations at China, from US President Donald Trump on down.
The problem is that in the la la land of Washington, most of the charges made so far are more incendiary than evidence-based. Some charges are so carelessly made as to be fact free. When Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are repeating online conspiracy theories, the game is up.
They give Beijing the perfect excuse to argue, not unreasonably, that the American accusations are politically motivated, and are no more than a distraction to scapegoat China and hide the utter incompetence of the Trump administration in its handling of the outbreak.
Following Trump, Pompeo has just claimed “enormous evidence” showed the new coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan. Both men have offered no evidence.
The intelligence agencies of the so-called Five Eyes network, according to a new report in The Guardian, appear to contradict their claim.
