The United States has suspended funding to the World Health Organization during the greatest global health crisis in the past century. The United States similarly blew up a G-20 health officials’ statement over language relating to the World Health Organization. Secretary Pompeo torpedoed a G-7 foreign minister’s statement when his peers refused to include a reference to the “Wuhan virus” in the communiqué. Members of the Trump administration reportedly have been pressing the intelligence community to corroborate a theory that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab. Trump administration officials have prioritized efforts to link the virus to China. Instead of standing back and allowing China to advertise its unattractive insecurities over its role in the initial spread of the virus, though, the Trump administration has adopted an “eye for an eye” response. Pompeo has been labeled a “liar,” an “enemy of humankind” and a “super-spreader” of a “political virus.”īy Timothy J. And China’s propaganda department has launched a coordinated assault on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of a kind not seen arguably since the Mao era. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has pushed fringe conspiracy theories on Twitter that COVID-19 may have originated in the United States and been carried to Wuhan. And the list goes on.Ĭhina’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” also has generated turbulence in the U.S.-China relationship. Many African leaders have registered anger over reports of racism against their citizens in southern China. Prominent Chinese voices have threatened Australia with economic retaliation for challenging China’s preferred COVID-19 narrative. Indian citizens have expressed outrage over being scolded by the Chinese embassy for commending Taiwan’s response. China’s embassy in Caracas has instructed Venezuelan officials to “put on a face mask and shut up,” in response to references to the “Chinese virus.” China’s embassy in Brazil has gone on the attack against a popular education minister. China’s ambassador to Sweden has threatened media outlets that report unfavorably on China. For example, the French government recently summoned the Chinese ambassador over remarks suggesting that France was leaving its older citizens to die. So, too, are its efforts to push countries that receive Chinese health assistance to praise China’s response to the virus while staying silent on its negligent initial response to it.Īlthough the list of examples is too long to cite in this short piece, it is safe to say that no part of the world has been spared. The same messages that are playing well at home, though, are having the opposite effect abroad.Ĭhina’s propaganda push to assert the superiority of its response to COVID-19 is arousing antipathy on nearly every continent. This brash new approach is helping China’s leaders stoke nationalism and shore up support at home amidst a spike in unemployment and a sharp economic downturn.
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