Blame game escalates between US and China over origin of coronavirus
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump says he has declared war on the coronavirus in
an effort to contain the outbreak and its economic impact here at home,
but on the world stage, his administration is engaged in another battle
as the US and China fight to shape the narrative about the pandemic's origins.
Trump and senior members of the administration have attempted to brand the outbreak
as the result of a "Chinese virus" as they ramp up accusations that
Beijing failed to identify, stop or warn about the virus early on.
The
administration has also implemented a coordinated messaging campaign
which includes talking points sent out by the National Security Council
pushing US officials to highlight China's alleged "coverup" and
subsequent disinformation campaign, CNN has learned.
Still,
it remains unclear if the administration has a comprehensive strategy
in place to counter Beijing's disinformation push as Chinese officials
continue to overtly spread false and misleading information about the
virus with little recourse beyond strongly worded statements from US
officials.
Trading jabs
Tensions
have been brewing for weeks between Washington and Beijing over who is
to blame for the outbreak. China continues to deny that the virus
originated there while top US officials, including Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo, have pointed the finger directly at Beijing.
US
officials have long been skeptical about information coming from China,
including the number of cases it has publicly reported, but the
diplomatic row between the two countries has escalated in recent days.
Despite
his initial praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump has struck a
more critical tone of late regarding Beijing's handling of the outbreak
and efforts to shift blame onto the US.
"I
wish they could have told us earlier about what was going on inside. We
didn't know about it until it started coming out publicly, but I wish
they could have told us earlier about it because we could have come up
with a solution," he said Saturday during a White House briefing.
Beijing did not hesitate to fire back.
China's
Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday that the US is attempting to
defame the Chinese government, shift responsibility and find a
scapegoat, calling claims by American officials that the virus
originated in Wuhan "immoral and irresponsible."
"I
think many people, when the pandemic, first started, thought, this is
an opportunity for global cooperation," Dr. Matthew Kroenig, a former
Defense Department and CIA official who now works as a professor at
Georgetown University, told CNN.
"What
we've seen instead is that it's just become a new arena for this great
power rivalry to play out," he said, adding that autocratic regimes, and
China in particular, are using disinformation to try to advance other
geopolitical goals, namely positioning itself as a responsible global
leader.
The ongoing war of words
has been fueled by allegations from top administration officials that
China is actively spreading disinformation about the virus' origins in
an effort to cast blame on the US, and other nations, for the current global pandemic.
Earlier this month, China's ambassador in Washington was summoned to the State Department
over a tweet from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhoa
amplifying a growing conspiracy theory that the coronavirus did not
originate China and may have been brought there by the US Army.
"When
you have the Chinese ambassador and the foreign minister saying through
their propaganda machine that the United States military somehow
concocted this virus and spread it in China, it's absolutely false,"
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, told CNN in an interview Monday.
"Everybody
knows the truth here, and the truth needs to come out. And they don't
want the truth to come out. That's why they're starting this
disinformation campaign," he said.
Sounding the alarm
US
officials have been closely monitoring China's disinformation efforts
and attempted to push back on the increasing number of false claims from
Chinese officials over the last month.
Yet
China's disinformation campaign is ongoing, US officials warn, pointing
to comments that were made on Sunday by Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Lijian Zhoa in which he suggested the virus started in the US
dating back to September 2019 and that those with the flu at that time
were misdiagnosed.
In response,
the Trump administration has implemented a coordinated messaging
campaign which includes talking points sent out by the National Security
Council pushing US officials to highlight China's alleged "coverup" and
subsequent disinformation campaign, CNN has learned.
How US spy agencies are tracking the coronavirus pandemic
The
NSC document containing coordinated talking points, which an
administration official told CNN includes input from several agencies,
formally acknowledges that more needs to be done to fight Chinese
disinformation, especially claims that the US is the actual source of
the virus, according to two State Department officials who have seen the
cable.
It also echoes concerns
that have been repeatedly raised by Pompeo in recent weeks as he and
other top administration officials have tried to sound the alarm about
Chinese disinformation related to coronavirus.
"There's
been some discussion about China and what they knew and when they knew
it. And I've been very critical. We need to know immediately. The world
is entitled to know. The Chinese government was the first to know of
this risk to the world," the top US diplomat said during Friday's White
House briefing.
Pompeo, along with
other Trump allies that include incoming chief of staff Mark Meadows
and Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, have also attempted to
reinforce the idea that the virus originated in China by publicly
referring to it as the "Wuhan virus" or "China virus."
That
characterization has also been recently adopted by Trump himself
despite push-back from health officials who say the description is
misleading and xenophobic. Last week, a photographer spotted Trump changing the word "corona" to "Chinese" in his prepared remarks.
Trump's lingering trade concerns
For
weeks, several Trump advisers have been urging the President to start
taking a harder line on China over its handling of the outbreak, making
the case that Trump should cast Beijing as responsible for the spread
rather than continue to praise Xi's efforts, according to two sources
familiar.
Initially, Trump
refrained from publicly criticizing China despite the advice of key
allies in Congress and inside the administration, including Meadows,
though he did move to ban travel from China at the encouragement of some
Republicans, including Cotton.
"Part
of the President's slow response is that he's going into an election
year, the economy was doing well, and he wanted have this portrayed
sense that he was in control and everything was going fine. At a certain
point, it became clear that it wasn't," according to Kroenig.
"I
understand the initial instinct to not want to admit there is a problem
but I think in this case, it backfired," he added, noting that Trump's
initial inclination was to praise China and tout his relationship with
Xi, as he's done in the past.
One
source close to the White House told CNN earlier this month that Trump
had privately expressed anger toward China but had not yet reached the
point of lashing out at Beijing publicly due to concerns that doing so
could negatively impact trade talks between the two countries.
China wants to take a victory lap over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak
But
Trump has appeared to change his tone in recent days, most notably by
joining Meadows and other top officials in characterizing the outbreak
as a "Chinese virus," a shift one Republican aide told CNN was likely
prompted by Beijing's disinformation campaign aimed at shifting blame
onto the US, and by default, Trump himself.
"I
think he does enjoy a relationship with President Xi. He wants the
trade, you know, the trade deal to work. At the same time, he recognizes
where this virus came from," McCaul said about Trump.
"You
know I don't call it the Chines virus. I call it the coronavirus or
Covid-19. But the fact remains, where did this come from? It came out of
the wildlife markets in Wuhan, and it spread beyond control outside of
China. For nearly two months, there were many things they could've done
to contain the virus, and they failed to do that. And I think they need
to be held accountable," the Texas Republican added.
And
while the administration is implementing a coordinated messaging
campaign aimed at criticizing China for a coronavirus "coverup," Trump's
comments Sunday during a task force briefing indicate that he may still
be trying to walk a careful line in his criticism of Beijing.
When
asked about China, Trump said he was not happy with China but then
turned and touted the amount of US agricultural products Beijing
continues to purchase amid the outbreak.
Asked
about the difference between Trump's rhetoric and that of several top
advisers, one US official noted that the President has often tried to
employ a "good cop, bad cop," strategy in dealing with foreign countries
and that appears to be the case with regards to coronavirus.
However,
Kroenig told CNN that the gap between Trump and his top advisers is
"pretty consistent with what we've seen in the administration over the
past couple of years with a fairly traditional in some ways,
administration and then a very unconventional president at the top."
"The
administration seems to be on board with the strategy of pushing back
against ... Chinese claims whereas the President still seems to have his
head in a somewhat different space and is looking for a cooperation
with these major autocratic powers," he said.
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