Another Chinese diplomat accused the U.S. military of starting the novel coronavirus outbreak, which is widely believed to have originated in China, even after high-level rebukes from the State Department.
Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Lin Songtian tweeted on Monday that “more evidence suggests that the virus was not originated at the seafood market in Wuhan at all, not to mention the so called ‘made in China.'” He was quote-tweeting a missive from China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who shared an article saying: “This article is very much important to each and every one of us. Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.”
The World Health Organization concluded the COVID-19 virus first appeared in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China. The WHO’s investigative report in February concluded that “early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to be have acquired infection from a zoonotic source as many reported visiting or working in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market.”
Zhao’s tweet last week drew a stern rebuke from the State Department. Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell summoned Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai after Zhao twisted comments made by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield as evidence to support a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is part of an American plot.
Zhao tweeted that “CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!”
Stilwell gave a “stern representation” of the facts to Cui, a State Department official told the Washington Examiner. The Chinese ambassador was “very defensive” during the meeting.
Zhao’s comments were a part of a Chinese strategy to deflect from “starting a global pandemic and not telling the world,” the U.S. official said.
The State Department ramped up its condemnations further on Monday during a call between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the director of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party, Yang Jiechi.
“Secretary Pompeo conveyed strong U.S. objections to PRC efforts to shift blame for COVID-19 to the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. “The Secretary stressed that this is not the time to spread disinformation and outlandish rumors, but rather a time for all nations to come together to fight this common threat.”
As of late Tuesday morning, there were 185,067 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and at least 7,330 deaths tied to the infection, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. There have been 81,058 confirmed cases in China and 3,230 confirmed deaths. In the United States, there were 4,661 cases, which have resulted in 85 deaths.
The article shared by the Chinese ambassador and Foreign Ministry spokesman was published by Global Research, a conspiracy theory website known for spreading disinformation. The piece claimed that “it would seem the only possibility for origination would be the U.S.” and that “it may therefore be true that the original source of the COVID-19 virus was the U.S. military bio-warfare lab.”
“As a global crisis, COVID-19 should be an area of cooperation between nations,” Pentagon Press Secretary Alyssa Farah tweeted last week. “Instead, the Communist Party of China has chosen to promulgate false & absurd conspiracy theories about the origin of COVID-19 blaming U.S. service members. #ChinaPropaganda”
This is not the only disinformation that China’s ambassador to South Africa has pushed. The statement at the top of that Chinese embassy’s website denies that COVID-19 “originated from China” and repeats alleged reports that “it was caused by the leakage of the US biological laboratory” or “this is a biological war launched by the United States against China.”
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted last week that the coronavirus didn’t originate in China and implied the outbreak began in the U.S. In between tweets about COVID-19, a number of which spread propaganda about China’s response to the outbreak, Hua also cast doubt the well-documented mass detention of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province.
The U.S. Intelligence Community warned Congress last week during an election security briefing that foreign disinformation efforts are “not a Russia-only problem” while noting that “Beijing continues to promote policies that are in line with China’s interests.”
Pompeo admonished the Chinese government for its denials about the coronavirus’s origins earlier this month, insisting on calling the illness the “Wuhan coronavirus.”
“It has proven incredibly frustrating to work with the Chinese Communist Party to get our hands around the data set, which will ultimately be the solution to both getting the vaccine and attacking this risk,” he said.
Trump too has begun to make a repeated point of calling COVID-19 “the Chinese virus” on Twitter.
It is not just China spreading disinformation about the U.S. role in the coronavirus outbreak.
Earlier this month, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, claimed that the coronavirus “may be the product of America’s biological invasion,” according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency and Iranian International. Last week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested the coronavirus was a “biological attack.”
The head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center told Congress in March that Russia has mobilized “an entire ecosystem” of disinformation to prey on global fears accompanying the outbreak and to blame the U.S.
The CDC issued a guidance over the weekend recommending against gatherings of more than 50 people. On Monday, Trump said people should not gather in groups larger than 10 and should avoid food courts and restaurants. State and local governments have shut down bars and theaters across the country.
