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Since Donald and Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19, leaders around the world have wished the couple a speedy recovery.
While Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message on Saturday night, he lagged behind other state leaders, including North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, a possible indicator of the state of US-China relations.
Trump announced early Friday that he and his wife had tested positive for the coronavirus, raising concerns about his campaign in the month before Americans went to the polls on November 3.
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Narendra Modi and Imran Khan, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, were two of the first leaders to send their best wishes, highlighting the perennial struggle of both countries for the support of the United States.
Taiwan, which is pushing for more aid from Washington, was also quick to release a statement through the island’s Foreign Ministry on Friday.
Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden sent his best wishes and Russia’s Vladimir Putin also sent his “sincere support.” Kim, a staunch ally of Beijing, also expressed his condolences to Trump. Despite the historic enmity between Washington and Pyongyang, Kim said he sincerely hoped that the president and the first lady would recover soon.
“I was hoping they would surely get over it,” reported the Korean Central News Agency. “I send a cordial greeting”.
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After earlier messages of goodwill from Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai and a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, on Saturday night Xi said that he and his wife Peng Liyuan expressed their condolences to their American counterparts and they said they expected a speedy recovery, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said it was “understandable” that the Chinese leader had not rushed to wish his American counterpart good health.
“[Xi] he has no reason to send his condolences to Trump before other leaders, ”Shi said.
Trump has publicly bragged about his friendship with Xi and Kim, even when relations between the countries were strained. In March, he said he had a “good relationship with China and with President Xi” but that the Covid pandemic had gotten out of hand.
Kim Jong-un sent “best regards” to the President of the United States. Photo: Reuters
But ties between China and the US have continued to deteriorate since then over issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, restrictions on Chinese tech companies and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which Trump has repeatedly described as the “China virus.” “.
Shi said Trump’s tough policies in China were likely to have ruined any goodwill between the two leaders.
“His personal relationship since April has been very bad because Trump has taken an extremely tough stance towards China since then, attacking China and increasing sanctions, of course driven to some extent by his hopes of being re-elected,” he said.
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Jon Yuan Jiang, an international affairs researcher at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, also said it was “understandable” that Xi hadn’t been too quick to wish Trump well, blaming this on the protracted trade war between the United States. and China.
Jiang said Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis could even be “good news” for his re-election prospects, as it could lead to a surge in support, as happened with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, which “could offset [his] deficiencies in the governance of Covid-19 ”.
This article US-China Relations: Xi Jinping sends his best wishes to Donald Trump a day after the Covid-19 diagnosis first appeared in the South China Morning Post
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