Coronavirus: Mike Pompeo calls on China to share early virus samples, accuses Beijing of destroying some

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday accused Beijing of destroying samples of the novel coronavirus it gathered during the early stages of the outbreak in China, and called on the Chinese government to share more data to help health authorities elsewhere better understand the pathogen that causes Covid-19.

“We strongly believe that the Chinese Communist Party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus in a timely fashion to the World Health Organisation,” Pompeo said in a briefing in Washington. “Even after the CCP did notify the WHO of the coronavirus outbreak, China didn't share all of the information that it had.

“Instead it covered up how dangerous the disease is,” Pompeo continued. “It didn't report sustained human-to-human transmission for a month until it was in every province inside of China. It censored those who tried to warn the world in order to halt the testing of new samples, and it destroyed existing samples.

“The CCP still has not shared the virus sample from inside of China with the outside world, making it impossible to track the disease's evolution.”

WHO says unlikely that virus came from lab

The WHO, the United Nations’ public health agency, also came in for criticism in the briefing as John Barsa, the acting administrator for United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID), said that an investigation of WHO would “get into all manners of management operation questions”.

USAID is in charge of disbursing US aid earmarked for the WHO and other foreign entities.

“There’s numerous questions in terms of the management of the WHO, how they have been operating holding member states accountable in their actions,” Barsa said.

President Donald Trump announced his intention to suspend US funding of WHO on April 14, pending a three-month review, accusing the agency of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus”.

Asked about Pompeo’s remarks, a Chinese embassy representative in Washington sent a timeline of interactions between Beijing and US health authorities about the virus’ spread.

“China began to inform United States of the pneumonia outbreak and response measures on a regular basis” on January 3, according to the timeline. Ma Xiaowei, head of China’s National Health Commission “talked over the phone with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar about the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak” on January 27, it said.

The embassy also pointed to a Bloomberg News interview with Chinese ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai on Tuesday, in which Cui accused senior US officials of ignoring scientific expertise in favour of pursuing “groundless accusations”. The ambassador made the remarks after Trump said Beijing may be “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic.

The WHO has defended its response, noting that it alerted the agency’s member states in January about the spread of the new coronavirus in China.

Pompeo’s comments marked the second time in a week that he has called on Beijing for more transparency concerning Covid-19; last Wednesday, in a phone conversation with Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat and director of the Communist Party’s office of foreign affairs, he pressed for a complete accounting of China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mike Pompeo seeks ‘full transparency’ from China

While Pompeo made China’s actions at the start of the coronavirus pandemic a focus of his briefing, he also addressed other issues on which the State Department is clashing with Beijing – including a round-up of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong and incidents in the South China Sea.

Beijing, Pompeo said, was “exploiting the world’s focus on the Covid-19 crisis” to push its agenda.

“Amidst increased efforts by Beijing to erode [Hong Kong’s] autonomy, law enforcement authorities have arrested pro democracy activists, including 81-year-old Martin Lee [Chu-ming],” he said.

Last week, Hong Kong police arrested at least 15 pro-democracy figures in a swoop that netted, among others, Lee and media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying for their roles in anti-government protests last year that did not have police approval.

Lee, the most senior barrister in Hong Kong, was dubbed the city’s “father of democracy” by the pro-democracy camp as he co-founded Hong Kong’s Democratic Party in 1994.

“We've also seen that the Chinese Communist Party is exerting military pressure on Taiwan and coercing its neighbours in the South China Sea, even going so far as to sink a Vietnamese fishing vessel,” Pompeo said.

Vietnam accuses Beijing of ‘seriously violating’ sovereignty in South China Sea

On April 3, a Vietnamese fishing boat with eight crew members on board sank after colliding with a Chinese coastguard vessel near the disputed Paracel Islands.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry said that the Vietnamese vessel had been rammed and sunk by the Chinese vessel. The Chinese coastguard claimed that the fishing boat had been fishing illegally in waters near the Paracel Islands, which China claims as its territory, and had refused to leave after repeated warnings.