You can repeat a lie over and over again but it doesn't make what you say true, and US President Trump has been lying through his teeth his entire career as a real estate mogul, reality TV star, presidential candidate, and President of the USA. His lies are so prolific it's hard to catalog them, but some of his biggest lies are reserved for China. China has been Trump's bête noire throughout his presidency. He rode to the White House accusing China of raping the US with unfair trade practices and has used China as a foil to deflect attacks directed against his tenure in office.
The clearest example of this is Trump's accusation that China did not do enough to stop the spread of the coronavirus. "Make no mistake. We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world. They could have stopped it, they should have stopped it. It would have been very easy to do at the source when it happened."
The absurdity of that charge should be obvious to any thinking person. Even to this day, Trump's own medical advisors say that they don't know much about the epidemiology of COVID-19. Its mode of transmission is still subject to debate and its etiology is still under study.
Early on, the advanced Western nations made light of its potential as a pandemic, not taking it seriously until its spread was out of control. As a result, they suffered severely with deaths in the tens of thousands and devastated economies. The most egregious failures were made by the US with Trump being responsible for not taking the necessary actions to stop its spread.
So, how in the world could China have stopped it when they knew next to nothing about it when it was first identified. The facts are there for all to see that China acted in an expeditious fashion, enabling it to contain and control the pandemic within its own borders, giving the world at least two months to prepare for its onslaught. Unfortunately, the world did not avail itself of the opportunity and nations have suffered mightily as a consequence. How, may it be asked, is that China's fault?
Besides these facts, recent evidence from Europe and the Americas shows that COVID-19 was already circulating in wastewater months before the outbreak in Wuhan. As anyone familiar with the science of epidemiology knows, the ultimate origin of the coronavirus is still unknown and it only serves political purposes to cast blame on any particular country or people. It's thus ridiculous to say as Trump has that, "... as soon as the (trade) deal was done, the ink wasn't even dry, and they hit us with the plague."
Trump's other allegations against China are equally false and misleading. His assertion that the law he signed targets police units that had cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing a new, strict national security law, ring hollow in light of the police brutality witnessed by the world on the streets of not only the US, but France, Spain, Chile and other Western allies of the US all of which have national security laws no different than those promulgated by China. Nothing in the new national security laws impinges on the free enterprise capitalist economy of Hong Kong or prevents the free exercise of the Hong Kong people's rights as outlined in the Basic Law. What is proscribed is the abuse of those rights by a militant minority that wants to impose its will on the Hong Kong people.
The recent spate of laws issued by the US sanctioning China has no basis in reality. They are simply a means to try and make trouble for Beijing and inflame public opinion against China and the CPC. They will have very little effect on China's continued economic growth and increasing global influence and will boomerang to adversely affect the US's own faltering economy. The US is painting itself into a corner that it will find hard to get out of.
Dennis Etler is an American political analyst who has a decades-long interest in international affairs. He’s a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. He recorded this article for Press TV website.
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