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VIRUS-US-CHINA-DIPLOMACY LEAD
Trump angers China by warning US may seek damages over virus
WASHINGTON, April 28, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump suggested
he may seek damages from China over the coronavirus pandemic which began in
the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread around the world, prompting a furious
response from Beijing on Tuesday.
Beijing and Washington have clashed repeatedly over the outbreak as
tensions have soared between the world’s two biggest economic powers.
“We are not happy with China,” Trump said at a White House briefing Monday.
“We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it could have
been stopped at the source.
“It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn’t have spread all over
the world,” he said, saying there were many options to “hold them
accountable”.
Trump was asked about a recent German newspaper editorial which called on
China to pay Germany $165 billion in reparations because of economic damage
due to the virus.
Asked if the US would consider doing the same, Trump said “we can do
something much easier than that.”
“Germany is looking at things, we are looking at things,” he said. “We
haven’t determined the final amount yet,” Trump said.
In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday accused US politicians
of “telling barefaced lies”, without naming Trump specifically, and of
ignoring their “own serious problems”.
“American politicians have repeatedly ignored the truth and have been
telling barefaced lies,” Geng Shuang told reporters at a regular press
briefing.
“They have only one objective: shirk their responsibility for their own
poor epidemic prevention and control measures, and divert public attention.”
Geng said US politicians should “reflect on their own problems and find
ways to contain the outbreak as quickly as possible.”
– Tensions and doubt –
There have been nearly a million infections with more than 56,000
coronavirus-related deaths in the United States and the pandemic has shut down
huge swathes of the economy.
In China, the outbreak seems to be under control with no new deaths
reported for 13 straight days and the toll standing at 4,633 — although
several countries have cast doubt over whether the numbers are accurate.
Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo angered Beijing last month by
repeatedly referring to “the Chinese virus” when discussing the COVID-19
outbreak — although they later appeared to drop the term.
But a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing later suggested that it was the
US military which brought the virus to Wuhan — prompting angry claims from
Trump that China was spreading misinformation.
Since then the US president has repeatedly attacked China’s lack of
transparency and the slowness of its initial response to the outbreak.
Claims from the US that the virus actually originated in a virology
institute in Wuhan with a high-security biosafety laboratory have also been
angrily refuted in China.
BSS/AFP/MMA/1612HRS