US should continue to view China as a threat, says congressional panel

Name: WHO team probing coronavirus origins in China leave hotel quarantine
Uploaded: 2021-01-28T21:22:29.000Z
Duration: 1 min 15 s
Description: WHO team probing coronavirus origins in China leave hotel quarantine

The story the Chinese Communist Party ‘is telling around the world is one that is often based on lies and half-truths,’ says US congressional panel’s co-chair

The panel’s comments reflect a widespread distrust of China in the US that has lasted beyond the end of the Trump presidency

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President Xi Jinping has turned China into an aggressive power, leaders of a US congressional advisory panel warned on Thursday. Photo: World Economic Forum via AFP

Jacob Fromerin Washington

Published: 5:22am, 29 Jan 2021Updated: 10:58pm, 29 Jan 2021

President Xi Jinping has turned China into a dangerous, aggressive power, and the US should continue to view the country as a threat, leaders of a congressional advisory panel warned on Thursday.

In the first public hearing during the Joe Biden administration for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), the panel’s comments reflected the widespread distrust of China in the US over the last year – views that have now lasted beyond the end of the Trump presidency.

“The story the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is telling around the world is one that is often based on lies and half-truths,” said USCC co-chair Carolyn Bartholomew at the hearing on US-China relations at the CCP’s centennial.

“To deflect attention from its early failures in addressing the Covid-19 outbreak, for example, its diplomats have falsely accused the United States of being the source of the virus,” she said. “The validity of its economic growth statistics is being questioned.”

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WHO team probing coronavirus origins in China leave hotel quarantine

“It is flatly denying the genocide the US Department of State and many experts have accused it of carrying out against the Uygurs as well as lying about forced labour, detention and torture, and the destruction of religious sites, all of which have been well-documented,” she added.