China - West 'war of words' over how to handle Covid-19

China "hides" information?

According to the corrected figures of the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Command of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, there have been more than 320 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection; 1,290 deaths since the beginning. A series of reasons have been explained by China, such as many patients died at home; due to the peak period, there was a phenomenon of incorrect and slow data reporting; many newly established facilities have not been able to connect and update data to the common epidemic network...

Wuhan City reported a significant increase in Covid-19 infections and deaths this week. Photo: AFP

However, despite China's explanation for the huge difference in the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths in Wuhan, leaders and officials from many countries have questioned Beijing's transparency and handling of the epidemic in recent times.

Most recently on April 18, US President Donald Trump aimed his attack at China when he declared that Beijing would have to suffer the consequences if it intentionally let the pandemic break out. Looking back over the past time, not only Mr. Trump but also many US officials have repeatedly criticized China as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) for a lack of transparency in the early stages of the outbreak.

The disagreement even reached its peak when President Trump announced on April 14 that he would freeze the WHO's annual funding budget of about $500 million, until there was a specific assessment of the organization's epidemic prevention work. In the statement, Mr. Trump accused the WHO of "making serious mistakes in failing to control and even covering up the strong spread of the disease." Most importantly, Mr. Trump criticized the health organization's close relationship with China in recent times, despite the US being the largest donor to the WHO.

US President Donald Trump continues to target China in the fight against Covid-19. Photo: AFP - Getty

Along with the US, French President Emmanuel Macron recently expressed his opinion that China still has "dark areas" in its handling of the epidemic. And that, "we should not naively assume that China is managing the epidemic better than France, because there are still things that have happened that the outside world does not know about." At a recent press conference, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also expressed Britain's skepticism about China and asked the Beijing government to answer questions such as: how did the SARS-CoV-2 virus appear, or why could this virus not be stopped sooner?....

Earlier, British MPs also accused China of trying to cover up information about what happened when the disease first broke out. The British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee also warned that China's disinformation campaign about Covid-19 is causing many deaths.

Smear and doubt!

In fact, the criticism and skepticism of Western officials about China's handling of the epidemic was made after the French Foreign Ministry recently summoned the Chinese Ambassador to protest some stances of the Chinese diplomatic agency regarding the campaign against Covid-19. In particular, the Chinese diplomatic agency in France published articles and information criticizing the management of the Covid-19 epidemic in France in particular and Western countries in general. And that French medical staff abandoned elderly patients to die in nursing homes, or that Western countries were slow to handle the situation, ready for the so-called "community immunity" when accepting a high death toll. According to the Western press, this is the latest attack from China to smear the efforts of countries in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic.

China-France relations are strained after accusations and criticisms of each other's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: China Daily

Not stopping there, in a recent press interview, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington is still asking Beijing to allow experts into the laboratory in Wuhan to determine exactly where the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated. In fact, according to observers, Mr. Pompeo's statement originally alluded to a hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from a laboratory here. However, up to now, experts and of course the Chinese government have denied the hypothesis as well as similar accusations.

In the face of criticism and skepticism about China's handling of the epidemic and the discrepancies in the numbers in Wuhan, World Health Organization (WHO) officials have the opposite view, saying that China's data adjustment is aimed at not missing any infections and deaths, and the reasons given by Beijing are reasonable. Of course, according to some experts, China is not the only country that has difficulty accurately counting the number of infections and deaths due to Covid-19 during this outbreak. Even in France, Italy or the UK, the actual number of deaths is predicted to be 15-20% higher than currently reported.

It is not yet known who is right and who is wrong, but many opinions believe that after China was accused of carrying out a propaganda campaign criticizing the West's anti-Covid-19 measures, the relationship between the parties will certainly increase in tension. And that, for different purposes, the parties will still pursue their own views! If France, the UK and some other European countries are competing and refuting China's propaganda and smear strategy, the US is the target of diverting public opinion from the dire epidemic situation in the country. Of course, because of that, the war of accusations and criticism of each other about the way the epidemic is handled as well as the origin of the SARS-Cov-2 virus will not end soon!