The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed in no small measure to strain further, the already fragile relationship between the United States of America and China, the two world largest economy. Prior to the emergence of the virus, these two countries have for close to two years engaged in trade war that costs both countries billions of dollars. Not until January 2020 that they begin the phase one of compromise.
The spread of covid-19 changed the tune as the United States was quick in February to declare a public health emergency and deny entry to foreign nationals who had visited China in the past two weeks. Base on that action, the Chinese government accused America of causing panic with its move, not until the virus escalated to other parts of the world and the United States became an epicenter of the virus with over two million infected and over hundred thousand lives lost due to complications from the virus.
President Donald Trump never cease to point accusing fingers to the communist government of China insisting that the virus was an invention of China for sinister attacks in its desperate ambition to be the world super power. In spite the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s claim that the virus is of natural origin, Trump insisted that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
He accused China of deliberately delaying in alerting the world to the spread of the virus as a political move designed to the advantage of his rival, Joe Biden, at the presidential poll. He said China could have stopped the spread of the disease if they wanted to.
But China in its response questioned Trump’s handling of the covid-19 crisis and accused him of neglecting to prepare Americans for the spread of the virus. A spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Zhao Lijian, accused the US of spreading the virus to Wuhan.
He posted a video on social media in which the Director of US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at a congressional hearing said that some deaths from coronavirus were discovered posthumously in the US. “It is possible that the US military brought the virus to Wuhan. The US has to be transparent and make public its figures. The US owes us an explanation,” he said.
Military personnel of the US participated in the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan last October. The Chinese believed that they might have spread the virus at the period.
Donald Trump made the big move when he accused the WHO of conspiring with China in misleading the US over the crisis. He vowed to take action against WHO, and in May, announced that the US will terminate its relationship with the health body. The US remains the highest voluntary donor to the WHO followed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.There is no gainsaying that the said pullout of the US from the body would have a serious adverse impact at this state of getting cure and vaccine for covid-19.
At this fragile stage, IMPACT NEWS advised that world leaders should focus and direct resources and energies into finding lasting solution to the spread of coronavirus rather than dissipating energy and resources to blame game and political power play.
