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By Yew Lun Tian
BEIJING (Reuters) – China has issued a lengthy rebuttal of what it said were 24 “ludicrous accusations” by some top American politicians about its handling of the new coronavirus outbreak.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has devoted most of its press releases over the past week to rejecting allegations by American politicians, especially Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that China had withheld information about the new coronavirus and that had originated from a laboratory in Wuhan City
A 30-page, 11,000-word article posted on the ministry’s website on Saturday night repeated and expanded the rebuttals made during press meetings, and began by invoking Abraham Lincoln, the 19th-century President of the United States.
“As Lincoln said, you can fool some people all the time and fool all the people sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” he said in the foreword.
The article also cited media reports that Americans had been infected with the virus before the first case in Wuhan was confirmed. There is no evidence to suggest that this is the case.
Desirous of overriding US suggestions. USA That the virus was deliberately created or somehow leaked from the Wuhan Virology Institute, the article says that all evidence shows that the virus is not man-made and that the institute is unable to synthesize a new coronavirus.
“ON TIME” WARNINGS
The article also provided a timeline of how China had provided information to the international community in a “timely”, “open and transparent” manner to rebuke the United States’ suggestions that it had been slow to sound the alarm.
Despite China’s repeated assurances, concern over the timeliness of its information has persisted in some sectors.
A report by Der Spiegel magazine last Friday quoted Germany’s BND spy agency as saying that China’s initial attempt to withhold information had cost the world four to six weeks that could have been used to fight the virus.
The article rejected Western criticism of Beijing’s handling of the case of Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old doctor who had tried to raise the alarm about the new virus outbreak in Wuhan. His death from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, sparked a torrent of anger and pain in China.
The ministry article said that Li was not a “whistleblower” and was never arrested, contrary to many Western reports.
The article mentioned that Li was reprimanded by the police for “spreading rumors.” Although Li was later named among China’s mourned “martyrs,” an investigation into his case also drew criticism online after he simply suggested that the reprimand against him be withdrawn.
Rejecting suggestions by the President of the United States, Donald Trump and Pompeo, that the new coronavirus should be called the “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus,” the article quotes documents from the World Health Organization to say that the name of a Viruses should not be country specific.
(Corrects to correct grammar in paragraph 11. Corrects to say that the article mentioned Li’s reprimand, it did not, in paragraph 12.)
(Yew Lun Tian Report; Gareth Jones Edition)
