China is reportedly retaliating against citizens speaking publicly about the coronavirus as the United States ramps up pressure on the country over its handling of the pandemic.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that the Chinese government is cracking down on citizens who report contracting new cases, talk about being infected, or mourn the death of coronavirus victims. The efforts include online censorship, police interrogations, and threats to lawyers against initiating lawsuits.
“These are things that Fox News has learned. And one of them, about an apparent effort by the Chinese government to cover up the true number of coronavirus cases in that country,” said Harris Faulkner, host of the network’s Outnumbered Overtime.
Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman under former President Barack Obama and a Fox News contributor, said the intelligence community is looking into China’s reports into the number of virus-related deaths in the country.
“There are many reasons to doubt the death numbers the Chinese government has put out,” Harf told Faulkner. “We saw Wuhan ordering more urns than they had said — the number of people who had died, with that. So, there are a lot of reasons to be very skeptical of what the Chinese are saying. That is an important investigation that is ongoing, and that is separate from how we respond here at home in the United States.”
The Chinese Communist Party is also paying mourning citizens not to attend the funerals of those who died, according to the network.
“Now, we learn that $420, the equivalency of that in China, is what the Communist Party will pay somebody not to mourn at a funeral,” Faulkner said. “Let us off-cut the cost of burying the dead if you just keep it down. Just keep it low. What are they trying to hide?”
“Wuhan officials are paying the bereaved about the equivalency [of] $420 for each relative they’ve lost,” Faulkner said. “Maybe that is a supplement because what they are doing is enforcing online censorship and threatening attorneys against initiating any lawsuits. “
In April, local Wuhan authorities revised its death toll by increasing it up to 50%, but the government in Beijing denied any cover-up in its handling of the health crisis.
During a Wednesday press conference, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the Chinese government for suppressing information about the coronavirus, from when the outbreak first occurred late last year to its status as a pandemic.
“China is still refusing to share the information we need to keep people safe,” Pompeo said before blaming the country for instigating what officials believe could have been a prevented pandemic.
“China could’ve prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide,” he added. “China could’ve spared the world descent into global economic malaise. They had a choice, but instead China covered up the outbreak in Wuhan.”
In recent days, Pompeo escalated his assertion that the virus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, a theory that has not been universally agreed on. The origination of the virus was the center of a blame game between the U.S. and China, with the latter circulating conspiracy theories suggesting the virus came from the U.S. military.
Senior U.S. officials are reportedly exploring proposals for punishing China for withholding coronavirus information, and President Trump and aides have discussed stripping the country of its “sovereign immunity,” which would enable the U.S. government or victims to sue China for damages. Other administration officials have talked about the U.S. canceling part of its debt to China. Trump has also discussed imposing tariffs on Chinese exports.
[Opinion: China’s coronavirus lies pile up]
