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Reuters
The coronavirus pandemic has actually gotten worse relations between Donald Trump’s America and Xi Jinping’s China.
It is clearly not a good time for the world and it is not a good time for relations between the US and China. President Donald Trump has actually repeatedly chosen to call the coronavirus the “Chinese virus”. His hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls it the “Wuhan virus”, something that triggers huge offense in Beijing.
The president and secretary of state have both denounced China for its failings in the preliminary handling of the outbreak. However Chinese spokesmen have actually utterly turned down any idea that they were less than transparent about what was going on. Social media in China has spread out stories that the pandemic has been caused by a United States military bacterium warfare program; rumours that gotten significant traction. Researchers have actually demonstrated that the virus structure is entirely natural in origin.
But this is not just a war of words, something more essential is going on.
Previously this month, when the US revealed that it was closing its borders to visitors from many EU countries, consisting of Italy, the Chinese federal government announced that it was sending medical groups and supplies to Italy, the nation at the leading edge of the coronavirus pandemic. It has sent help to Iran and Serbia too.
It was a moment of huge significance. And it was an indicator of the info fight that is being waged behind the scenes, with China eager to emerge from this crisis with renewed status as an international player. It is a fight which the United States – at the moment – is losing hands down. And the belated despatch of a small mobile United States Air Force medical facility to Italy is hardly going to change the equation.
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AFP
China has sent medics and equipment to assist other stricken countries.
This is a moment when the administrative and political systems of all nations are being stress-tested like never in the past. Management will be at a premium. Existing political leaders will ultimately be evaluated by how they took the minute; the clarity of their discourse; and the efficiency with which they marshalled their countries’ resources to react to the pandemic.
The pandemic has actually hit at a time when US-China relations were already at a low ebb. A partial trade offer has hardly plastered over the